Weapons: Origin
by Unlimited Blade Works
Summary: There are men who struggle against destiny and yet achieve only an early grave. There are men who flee destiny, only to have it swallow them whole. And then there are men who embrace destiny, and do not show their fear. These are the ones who change the world forever.
1. Chapter 1

**Weapons- Origin **

**Chapter One: Change the World**

**Authors note-**

Been watching the X-men movies lately and this popped into my head, it is neither my best idea nor my worst idea but it is an idea and so as I am, admittedly, procrastinating when it comes to finish the next chapter of Sword Dancer and Illuminating Heaven I thought I'd write this.

Note that this story will draw mostly from the X-men movies, though purely on the chance that I continue this I have started watching X-men: Evolution so it will probably draw from that as well and naturally the Harry Potter books and some other marvel movies.

On that note if you're one of those people who hated the X-men movie in comparison to the comics or some of the TV shows it is probably in your best interest to leave this story now. I have done some research on the characters that I am using but that's normally not enough to make sure that you get the character down, just thought I'd tell you that in advance in case it was something that would really put you off, saves you time in not reading a fanfiction that you may not like, saves me time in not reading/responding to a potential rant review. Everybody wins, kind of.

Also Harry has no memory of who he is and wont find out for awhile, that being said, he is a wizard and more importantly he will be involved in the events of the Harry Potter book, though the Hogwarts attendance age has changed. They now start school at twelve and continue on until they are nineteen with a further five years that can be taken if the person wishes to go through what is effectively magical university. Also all muggle subjects are taught in addition to the magical ones. This will be a magical world that is far more integrated with the muggle one.

At any rate it's three thirty in the morning as I am writing this authors note and I really need to get to bed so, I'll just be uploading this now. Please enjoy and no it hasn't been BETA'ed if I decide to continue then I'll get the chapter BETA'ed. Also if you want this continued then please leave either a review or private message stating that, thanks.

**Story Start- **

The child breathed in deeply, a single breath, in then out, slow and controlled. He was in pain, he was in so much pain it was unreal. The child feigning sleep was neither short nor overly tall, if anything he was of average hight for his age, nine years old. The black haired child dared to crack open an eyelid to observe his situation more closely, he had been dumped back in his cell, that much was obvious. It was a small two by two room, a single mattress as well as a toilet, both made of steel, comfort was not exactly something that a prisoner was given at the facility. He looked down, his green jump suit standing out in the gloom.

The child closed his eye again, and went back to trying to control his breathing. His healing factor was taking care of the damage already and he was finding it somewhat easier to breathing, the child wanted to snarl, even in his mind he could see that damned symbol, a skull surrounded by what he could only call tentacles. It was on his door and on some of the equipment he had seen over the years at the facility, though the Roman numeral X was also quite prominent in certain parts of the base.

The child knew that he shouldn't be able to think like this, it was simply to advanced for what his mental development should be at his age. That being said the damned scientists had screwed around with his head so much and so often perhaps it didn't really matter. He could remember seeing things, remember doing things that he knew as fact he had never done, the child knew he could hack most government systems in the fastest way humanly possible. He knew how to fight hand to hand, despite only ever having his body conditioned for hand to hand combat never actually practising it. How to load a gun, how to read, how to write, basic and advanced science, mathematics, politics, basic and advanced first aid, medical practices, the name of every currently well known mutant on the planet and what their skill set was. He knew this but had never studied it, they had screwed around with his head.

It made him bitter.

The child had no idea what his name was, he was never given one inside the facility, all he knew was his designation, R-15, the fifteenth of his series, and the only one to live for so long. Apparently the facility had him since he was three, or was it four? He couldn't remember, did it really matter? They had him for most of his life at any rate, they had experimented on him for most of his life. The child reached up and touched the collar on his throat, it was this that prevented him from escaping, it was this that bound him to their will, and he hated them for it. Still the black haired child counted himself lucky that they hadn't done the imprinting on him yet.

It was simply too dangerous to do such to a person of his age, or at least it used to be, they could easily add things to him, but taking them away? That was far more difficult and possessed the chance that it would render him brain dead. He knew as fact that not everyone survived the imprinting and no one survived it in any way that really mattered. Still that would happen soon, the child after all his time inside the facility didn't fear much, he did fear the imprinting. Everything that he had left of himself, everything that he could still call his own would be taken from him.

The imprinting process would take away the parts of his mind that the scientists found to be of no use to them, in other words his personality. Hadn't they taken enough already? His name, his birthday, they altered his body, screwed with his mind and now they were going to take away his identity? What gave them that right? WHAT GAVE THEM THE RIGHT!? He could hear movement in the cell across from his, the child smiled, it was that person that stopped him from breaking. He knew that, why did he know that? Was it from the information they had pushed in his mind or was it something else, he supposed it didn't matter, he wouldn't know her much longer anyway.

The child's eyes opened, a startling green shining in the darkness. He could hear the other child across from his cell move to the bar.

"Are you there?" The voice echoed lightly, it was female. He knew that much, they had never seen each other, never touched each other and were still the only support the other had, it was so pathetic that it made the boy want to cry with the absurdity of it all.

"Yeah I'm here," The boy replied lowly, he knew she would hear him. Her senses had been heightened by the scientists after all, his senses hadn't been heightened but he had more than his fair share of implants of genetic tissue from the bastards. As far as he knew the only reason that they stopped adding to him was that it was beginning to get to the point that it could kill him, the bastards wanted a working toy not a broken one, his saving grace he guessed.

"You okay?" The female voice asked, the black haired child sighed and pushed his hair out of his eyes, it was growing too long, he guessed the scientists would shave it all off again soon. Honestly the black haired child wasn't sure why the girl was asking, was it for his sake, to know that he was okay, or was it for her sake, to know that the only person that treated her nicely in this hell hole could keep treating her nicely. The boy couldn't help but wonder if she would abandon him if he couldn't be nice to her any more. On that note why was he nice to her, was it because he felt he needed to be? Because he wanted to be? Or was it some vague remnant of a desire to help others making itself known? he didn't know, he doubted he ever would.

"I'll be fine, still we won't be talking like this again very soon." The child stated, he could almost feel the nod coming from the other side of the hall.

"Imprinting," It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes," no answer came after he told her, to be honest he didn't expect one. The black haired child closed his eyes and allowed himself to slip into sleep. As he drifted into the realm of Morpheus the child thought he could hear the sound of small droplets of water hitting the floor, which he considered strange, that had never happened before.

**XXX**

The child cried out in pain as he woke, it was a familiar wake up call, he looked up already knowing what he would find, a guard smiled down at him, it was not a nice look. The child's blood froze in his veins, was it really here already? They only took him out of his cell to do experiments on him or have him train, neither of which should be happening today, that left just one option, imprinting. He was afraid, he was terribly afraid. The guard, still keeping his smile, threw something at the boy, the dull metal corner of the object impacted next to his eye and caused a small cut, which was healed almost as fast as it had been made.

"Morning little buddy," the guard told him in a mocking tone. "Put that on, today is the last day of the rest of your life." The man told him jovially, the child looked down and picked the object off of the floor, it was a pair of small metal tags, the black haired boy recognised them as dog tags. They were simple and to the point.

R-15

Code Designation: Raven

Number: XXIV

The boy slipped the dog tags around his neck and stood up, he saw the guard palm the switch a small innocent looking device that if pressed would make his collar send enough electricity into him to cause immense pain and stop him using his abilities. He knew the man's partner would be outside the doorway, so even if he could render the first guard unconscious or dead, most likely dead, his back up would still be able to flip the switch. The boy walked forward as the guard gestured towards the door and walked out into the dankly lit hallway. He could feel the cold steel on his feet, they never saw the point in giving their test subject footwear, what was the point? After all it wasn't like they were considered human, the boy reflected bitterly.

The boy stopped outside his room and held his arms up, the second guard stepped forward and ran the metal detector over his body, standard protocol really. At one time an inmate had managed to make a shiv and killed a scientist with it, now they were all scanned before they were taken anywhere near the 'important' people. The metal detector went off and the guards hand went to his throat and gripped the dog tags, he turned to his partner and began yelling. Apparently he wasn't supposed to get those until he got to the scientists, the man had apparently taken them as a joke and given them to him early because it would be 'funny' to see his reaction to being imprinted.

The world slowed down as the black haired child noticed the knife on one of their belts, the man was beginning to turn back to him. Imprinting, he was scared, he was going to die, his body would still move but he wouldn't still be him, he was going to die, the words came back to him. The words that the girl had spoken to him years ago in jest, that maybe they should try for a prison break.

His hand blurred, the knife was out of it's sheath and across the first guards throat before they could even realise he had moved. Blood fountained out of the wound on the man's throat, the boy felt nothing, he was a weapon, he was made by humans, to kill humans. This was what he was built to do, what he was trained to do, what he was born to do. The blood splashed across his face, the sickly sweet coppery smell invading his nose, exactly like those animals they had him kill when he was younger, as well as the criminals they had him execute, his arm blurred again, moving far faster than should be humanly possible.

It was a 'gift' that the scientists had given him, super human reaction speed, the boy's body was moving on auto pilot, the knife came up next to his head before it was whipped forward and buried itself in the other guards throat. The boy came back to himself as he looked at the corpses, he needed to move, that was his first thought, he needed to move, he had to get out, he had to escape. The boy's training asserted itself again, his hands blurred forward, searching the guards pocket and finding their key cards, he walked over to the other side of the hall and waved the card against the scanner, the door to his, dare he say it, friends cell opened.

It was an instant that seemed to last for an eternity.

The girl was not what one could call scrawny but she was definitely on the thin side. Black hair that went down to the middle of her shoulders that was marred with dirt and green eyes that were looking at him with a mixture between suspicion and wonder. Somehow she even managed to make that damned jumpsuit look better than it did on him.

"Hi," The black haired child knew it was a stupid way to start a conversation but couldn't think of another way to go about it. The girl just continued to look at him before replying.

"Hi," It seemed they were both a little stuck, the girl looked him up and down once. "We need to get that collar off you." She stated, the boy nodded and turned around wrenching the knife out of the guards throat, he didn't bother with inane questions such as if she was coming with him, if she wasn't she wouldn't be offering to help. He presented the knife to her, hilt first, the girl shook her head and flexed her hands, a pair of bone like claws extended from between her knuckles. The boy was unsurprised, they had talked about their mutations to each other before, he aready knew about them, though he was slightly surprised that she would be using them to get rid of his collar. He didn't bother to argue, a team would be sent soon, either to check on where the guards were or when their corpses were scene on camera to subdue the two of them.

The boy stood still as the girl stalked forward, her claws bit into his flesh and he felt warm blood pooling, the boy held in a flinch as the sweet coppery smell of blood invaded his nose. The cuts healed almost as fast as they were made but they served their purpose. His blood allowed the girl to move the collar enough to find a weak point on the inside, she went for it, stabbing straight through the left side of his neck as she did so, the boy groaned. Most people would have been screaming in pain, but having your pain threshold constantly tested for years made him sturdier than most, the collar fell away from his neck. Landing on the floor with a ring of finality to it, the boy grunted as the claw was removed, the girl stood back before undressing and laying down on the cold steel floor.

She could have just as easily removed a collar on her as she had to him so the scientists had to find another way to keep her under control, instead of a collar they inserted a metal ball that did the same thing in the middle of her lower back. Just the place that she wouldn't be able to get it out herself, the boy gripped the knife he got off the guard tightly and thrust it into her back, the girl grunted. The boy pulled down, hard, she grunted again, the wound healed almost as fast as he made it, the boy pushed his hand inside the wound, this time she did scream. It hurt him, not physically, but for some reason, inside it hurt him to hear her scream. He gripped the ball and ripped it out, she screamed again, his heart hurt. The ball came free in a spray of blood, taking some of her small intestine with it, the wound healed shut almost immediately. The girls breathing evened out and she stood and nodded to him. Despite the pain that was slowly vanishing from her face and the sweat she looked at him gratefully.

The boy walked back over the the guards and grabbed their weapons, taking the knives for himself and one of the pistols, unfortunately he couldn't take any ammo as the Jumpsuit lacked any pockets. Fortunately the knives could be clipped to the suit if he was inventive about it, that being said the boy wasn't sure if they would stay there if he had to really start ducking and diving. Holding one of the knives in his right hand and the pistol in his left the black haired boy looked at the girl. Who was taking the safety off her own pistol, her bone claws already out. The two could hear boots pounding on the steel, the girl reached down as she looked the guards over.

"No grenades," She told him sounding a little bitter. "Though I suppose that would make it to easy." She added thoughtfully, the boy grabbed her arm and she nodded, the four guards rounded the corner, their rifles came up, they were not about to tell them to get down or to surrender, they were to be subdued or killed by any means necessary. While it was true that they were some of, perhaps even the most, successful experiments that had been produced by the facility they were not completely irreplaceable. The two vanished in a flash of red light, the guards blinked as something hit the floor behind them, by the time they began to turn it was already to late.

The girl dove forward, burring her claws in ones skull, the arterial spray of blood coating her body. Her gun came up, shooting the other in his left eye, blood painting the wall behind the man. As for the boy, his body blurred, his knife move stabbing the first man in his right eye socket and piercing his brain, the second was but down by a bullet going into his brain. The two looked at each other, both disregarding the gore they were covered in.

"Could you teleport us out?" She asked, the boy shook his head.

"No, I either have to be able to see where I'm going, or I actually have to have been their once before. Otherwise we could end up anywhere," the girl nodded grimly.

"Anywhere might be better," She told him. He nodded in return, before turning to the door way at the end of the hall.

"True," he told her. "That being said, lets not try our luck unless we really, really, have to. I don't want to end up at the bottom of the ocean or trapped in the middle of a mountain if I can help it." The girl looked at him strangely for a second.

"What are the chances of that actually happening?" She asked, the boy had to hold in a sigh, even now she was too curious for her own good.

"More than I'd like to admit." He replied, she nodded grimly and faced the door. The two mutants ran forward, from here on out it was victory or death. The boy reached up as he ran and gripped the dog tag's before ripping them off and throwing them to the floor, the shiny steel slowly being swallowed up by the crimson ichor of blood.

**XXX**

Their breakout went much the same from that point on, not that the guards didn't try to stop them. They most certainly did, they died doing it as well, despite being only nine years old the two were created to be the ultimate weapons and it was a testament to their training that they performed as well as they did. They guards could not match them, that was simple truth. They had too many abilities, they were too varied, too fast and to strong to be taken down by normal humans. The scientists that had experimented on them had worked to create the perfect weapons, I suppose they could call them a success.

The boy ducked low, allowing the bullet to hit harmlessly above his head. His healing factor was incredible but a bullet to the head would kill him. As would one to his heart, the girl could survive them he couldn't, his healing factor simply wasn't that advanced, though he could easily heal from close to all other injuries. His hand flickered with inhumane speed, the knife was loosed taking the man between the eyes. One down, three left, his right arm came back, the space around his hand seemingly moving as if in a heat haze. His arm moved, the wind that he had condensed around his hand was released, an invisible blade aimed to cut down his enemies.

The three soldiers seemed to stop, the black haired boy could hear the last enemy of the girl die behind them, the three bodies fell to the floor, their chest separated from their abdomen by the wind blade. The two mutants continued on, they killed anyone they saw until they found it a single door, small, seemingly innocent, that they forced open wide and then they stopped.

The world, they both had memories of it that weren't theirs but they didn't even compare to the real thing, it was beautiful. They were inside a dam before, couldn't say that he saw that coming. Their surroundings were mountains, pine trees growing out of their sides, snow blanketed the land scape, falling from the heavens like a white cloud. The black haired boy took a deep breath in through his nose, the air it smelled so clean and fresh. Nothing at all like the stagnant and stuffy air inside the facility, the black haired boy grabbed the girls hand. The water around them looked icy and fresh, he could look at this all day long, the child supposed it would take some time for him to get used to seeing things for himself. He had no idea where they were but considering the surroundings and the accents of some of the scientists and the guards he would place a bet on either Canada or Alaska, he supposed it didn't matter.

The sound of boots on steel could be heard the black haired boy smiled at the girl who nodded, they vanished in a flash of red. By the time the next team of guards arrived all the found were a pair of foot prints slowly being covered up by the falling snow.

**XXX**

"We lost them sir," came the voice through the radio. The man had to restrain himself from beginning to destroy his own office upon hearing those words. The man forced himself to calm down. It had been luck, pure unadulterated luck that had allowed him to get his hands on those two in the first place and now they were gone, GONE!

Six years and almost five billion dollars went into creating those two, they were supposed to be the perfect weapons, the perfect assassins and soldiers. It really was too bad that he had held off the imprinting this long, had he done it earlier he could still have them. Then again there was a high chance that had he tried to have them imprinted on any earlier it would have back fired spectacularly and made both of them brain dead so perhaps this was the better option. After all as long as they were alive he could, eventually, recover them.

He rubbed a weathered hand across his face. He was getting old, he knew this, his life's work, his ambition, he would complete it before the end, he knew that he would. He had to, he had sworn an oath to complete it no matter what, unfortunately two of his major pieces had just walked out the front door and vanished, literally. Still while it was a set back it was not an irreversible set back, he could salvage this, somehow.

The man sat down into his office chair and interlaced his fingers, the only question was how.

**Three Years Later**

The teenager that called himself Raven looked over the city and smiled at the sight of the sun descending over the horizon. The night was coming and that meant it was time to go to work, the last three year's had been, dare he say it, good. They had to move fairly constantly the first two years but after that he and Laura had been able to slow down a little. The lack of things like birth certificates and parents stopped them from going to school but it didn't really matter, high school diploma or no high school diploma they were already both very intelligent, one thing he would actually thank those bastard scientists for. Thank you downloaded information.

He hadn't asked the girl where she came up with the name Laura, she had told him that she had been given it by someone, a scientist, but she couldn't remember anything about them. As for how the two of them got by, well that was actually rather simple. They sold their skills to the highest bidder. A good example of this would be what he was doing right now, looking for his targets, luckily he didn't have to kill them or anything like that.

All he and Laura had to do was rough them up a little and show them exactly where they were on the food chain, and, more importantly, why they should be paying protection money to the people who really owned this area. Raven did suppose that it was probably a little, well okay he figured it was probably more than a little, reprehensible to work for organised crime. But honestly he found it hard to care. He was a weapon created by humans to kill humans, humans had taken so much from him already, granted he had gained power from it but if it wasn't for humans he wouldn't need it in the first place. All in all Raven found it hard to care about humanity, he was disinterested in them at best, apathetic at worst. He wasn't sure if that would ever change, or if he wanted it to change. Though the altered mutant would admit to possessing a soft spot for his own kind.

The teen yawned and looked down at the streets, he wasn't dressed overly ostentatiously. Which was a good thing he thought, after all dressing ostentatiously would be kind of counter productive when you were trying to keep a low profile. A pair of black sneakers, black and grey camouflage pants, granted he knew that they were worthless as actual camouflage but he liked the way they looked. A long sleeved white shirt with a black jacket over top, someone who had training in the military or the police might have been able to notice the Colt 1911 in a shoulder holster.

Or the pair of knives strapped under his shirt, but he doubted it. The black haired teen rarely had to rely on his weapons, his fists and ability to manipulate wind were normally more than sufficient, but sometimes the sheer intimidation factor was necessary in his and Laura's line of work.

His phone went off, it was nothing special all it could do was make calls and send texts but it got the job done. Raven placed the phone to his ear.

"Evening Laura, I take it you found them." He said into the phone.

"That's not all I found." Came the voice from the other side of the line. Even knowing that she couldn't see him Raven tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Just get over here." She told him, "I'm on the corner of 29th and East." He got the dial tone as she hung up and sighed. Before taking one last look at the sky line and jumping off the ten story apartment block he had been standing on top of, his power over wind caught him immediately and sent him higher. It wasn't flight, not really, but with his wind control he could mimic it pretty well, plus it beat walking, it beat the hell out of walking.

The teenage wind manipulator landed lightly on the top of a building overlooking the ally that Laura was watching and immediately understood what she meant. The group of ten thugs that they had been sent to take out had already been taken care of, courtesy of a red head teen who seemed to be very, very, freaked out at what had just happened. The girl looked to be the same age as Laura and he but she could have been slightly older or even younger, top down was not a good way to profile someone when talking about age. Raven looked down the ally, he could see Laura at the edge of it, hidden from the girls vision, as if asking what to do. Not that he blamed her, he would be doing the same were their situations reversed. He wasn't quite sure how to approach this either, so what exactly was he supposed to do. The girls eyes swung to Laura who was still hiding herself.

"Y-Y-You can c-come out I-I know you're there." The girl yelled, her voice breaking slightly. Laura looked up at him, Raven was deep in thought. A Telepath maybe? That would explain a lot, he had a minor ability in Telepathy himself. Tough unlike most natural Telepaths he couldn't reach out and read others thoughts unless he was in direct skin contact with them, his Telepathy was entirely centred around making him difficult to read or sense by other Telepaths. Perfect for what the facility had wanted him to be, the perfect assassin. Still it could be something else, though Telepathy would explain why she could sense Laura but not him.

The wind manipulator shrugged. He supposed it didn't really matter and someone as obviously scared and vulnerable as the girl wouldn't be with the facility. Raven supposed that they could talk to her, the wind user stepped off the edge of the building and fell, stopping almost immediately before he hit the floor. The girl seemed startled when he landed, not that it surprised him in her position he supposed he would be surprised as well. While the girl was distracted he signalled Laura to come out. The black haired green eyed girl stepped out into the open. Her black sneakers white pants and grey shirt making her look like just another average person, which, naturally, was exactly what they were going for. The girl looked from one of them to the other in a mixture of confusion and wariness.

"Who are you?" She asked, Raven noted that she had lost the stutter, that was good that meant she was adapting.

"Laura," The green eyed girl answered before pointing at her male companion.

"Raven," The wind manipulator introduced himself with a smile. The girl seemed to have calmed down slightly, that was good, he had enough death matches without adding voluntary ones to his list.

"Why are you here? How did you do that?" The girl demanded, Raven fought back a sigh.

"Well actually taking care of the ten morons was a job we were hired to do so this is complete coincidence. As for how I did that, well I'm somewhat similar to you." He answered simply, the girl looked at him for a second.

"I somehow doubt that," She told the black haired teen as things around him began to levitate, starting with the ten morons. A Telepath and Telekinetic, intriguing. The black haired teen exerted his control over wind and forced the objects back down to earth, he could actually feel himself expending a fair amount of effort doing so. The girl was powerful no doubt about that, very powerful. Though Raven had no doubt that he was the more experienced of the two. The girl looked at him stunned.

"As I said, I'm somewhat similar to you." Raven told her, a smile still on his face. "And since we're talking and all may I ask your name?" He inquired politely, it didn't surprise him that he was doing all of the talking, between him and Laura he was the 'people person' of their dynamic duo. The black haired teen took in the Telepaths looks as she reacted to his words. The girl was wearing cream cargo pants and a purple shirt, white sneakers, she was probably going home when she met up with the ten morons. She had shortish red hair that reached the upper portion of her shoulder blades, in a somewhat similar style to Laura and green eyes.

"Jean Grey," The girl answered him, still sounding stunned. Raven nodded, his smile still in place.

"Why can't I sense you? Why can't I hear you?" She asked him quickly, Raven just smiled and shook his head.

"It seems you have a talent in Telepathy and Telekinesis, though by the sounds of it you can't control your Telepathy well enough to stay out of other peoples minds. As for why you can't sense me well that is quite simple. I have a slight,"

"A very slight," Laura butted into the conversation in a snarky tone. Raven gave his partner a quick mock glare.

"Skill with Telepathy, it lets me mask my mind and defend it against other Telepaths." Raven told her, then looked at her critically for a second then recoiling. "You can't control it at all can you?" He said lowly, causing the girl to start. "It's like your powers on all the time and your constantly reading the people around you, weather you want to or not." It was a statement not a question but Jean nodded anyway. Raven looked pensive for a second before looking back at the girl. "If you would like I can teach you how to control your Telepathy to an extent." The black haired mutant offered. The red head was immediately on guard.

"And what do you get out of it!?" She demanded, Raven considered it for a second.

"You help Laura and me on jobs when you've got decent enough control, nothing to strenuous but it won't be light work either. Do we have a deal?" Raven asked extending his right arm.

There are times when the entire world is balanced on the tip of a sword, when everything and anything can change the fate of the world, for better or for worse. On that day, as dusk fell and Jean Grey reached out and grasped the hand of the mutant who called himself Raven, the man who's name would one day be said in a mixture of awe and fear.

The sword came down and, for better or worse, the world was changed forever.

**Chapter 1- End**


	2. Chapter 2

**Weapons: Originally**

**Chapter Two: Love It For The Money**

**Authors Note-**

So chapter 2, enjoy.

On a more serious note since I've decided to continue this I decided to write myself out a little story board for future reference as well as to plan out exactly how long this Fanfiction will go for, lets just say the scale is ambitious and leave it at that. That being said most characters, and by the time I'm done the character list is going to be a long one, will get some time in the spot light. Most of the story arc's will be broken up into focusing on two to three particular characters. For example this story arc will be focusing on Harry/Raven, Laura and Jean. While the next story arc, set during the first X-men movie, will be focusing on Raven, Wolverine and Rouge. Hopefully by the time I'm done careful attention will have been given to each character, at any rate lets get on with the show shall we?

**Story Start-**

The meeting place was dank and dark, the men inside of it were reprehensible. They were beyond saving or forgiveness, each of them had more blood on their hands than most serial killers and had been responsible for more human misery than most murderers. Worse still, they found nothing wrong with their actions. The six men were the kind of scum that the world could easily do without, that the world would be better off without. Each dressed similarly, black dress shoes, pants, a white undershirt and a jacket. As if they had been taking lessons from every Hollywood gangster movie ever.

Two figures in mottled grey camouflage watched them from the shadows. They were being paid a lot of money for this, a lot of money. Raven looked over the men from the rafters of the warehouse while Laura crept along the ground, getting closer. Their powers were a no go in this situation, this needed to look as normal as possible. They hadn't brought Jean with them, they brought her with them to get experience on less important jobs, such as roughing up thugs, but they didn't think she was ready to kill people in cold blood. At least not yet. Still the last six months had been good training for the red headed mutant. Raven had finally managed to teach her how to close off her mind from those around her when she wanted to and they were just getting started on her control of Telekinesis.

Still the Telekinesis training was more trial and error than anything else, while Raven could mimic the abilities of Telekinesis with his wind manipulation he was not a user of Telekinesis. So the best he could usually do for the red head was show her something he could do with wind and then have her try to replicate it, they were having so-so results. What Jean, Laura and he really needed was someone who knew about mutations extensively and could help them train their powers. None of them were holding their breath for that, after all what were the chances of someone like that actually existing?

The black haired mutant shook his thoughts off and turned his attention back to the floor below him, Laura was almost in position. One of the men placed a briefcase on the table, Raven smiled as the other five moved closer to it, just a little more. The briefcase was opened, inside sat rows of white powder inside plastic bags. Heroin, well at least he wasn't going to lose any sleep over killing these morons. One of them picked up a packet.

"Unadulterated as always right?" The man asked, another nodded and he laughed. "You have a good eye for this stuff as always Michael." The man told one of the others who nodded at the small amount of praise thrown his way. The man looked back down at the briefcase and placed the packet back inside. "With all of this it wouldn't be hard to get a house built at all, in fact it would probably even be really, really cheep in comparison to how much people are always bitching about it." The man remarked before looking at the people on the other side of the briefcase, and that was when everything went straight to hell.

Laura popped up from her hiding place as Raven disappeared in a red flash, the Colt 1911 being drawn from it's shoulder holster as he teleported. Laura's arm moved, the shotgun being removed from her back. It was aimed just as quickly and the trigged was pulled. The roar of gunfire enveloped the warehouse. The first man went down, his face being reduced to a bloody mush by the shotgun shell. The others reacted beginning to draw their guns but by that point it was already to late.

A flash of red light appeared and Raven landed lightly on top of the briefcase. His arm blurred, super human reflexes coming to the forefront. The Colt came up and gunfire once again sounded as he put a round inside three different gangsters heads, he could hear the loud roar of the shotgun behind him as Laura killed another. He twisted, his form blurring with the speed the Colt coming up and spitting fire as he pulled the trigger. The slide came back as the bullet raced down the barrel of the gun. The lump of lead spent a split second in the air before it burred itself in the elbow of the last gangster in the building just as the shotgun roared again and hit the man in the kneecap, he was going nowhere. The man fell screaming, Raven was willing to be that hurt like a motherfucker.

The black haired girl calmly walked over to the briefcase and picked it up, a smile on her face. The man looked at them with a mixture of hatred and fear, Raven spared a moment to wonder if it was the same expression that he had looked at the scientists with before deciding that it didn't really matter.

"Was that your objective?" The man spat at them, Laura smiled and threw the briefcase into the air, a few of the packets falling out, before shooting it as it came back down. The look of absolute disbelief on the man's face was priceless.

"The total price for all that was what, 2 million? Aren't you the lucky one," She told the man levelling her shotgun at his head. "You can get 'high' even while falling into hell." The trigger was pulled and the man's head was reduced to little more than red paste, Laura replaced the shotgun on her back. "Well time for the clean up," she told him unenthusiastically, Raven nodded and walked to the corner of the warehouse and where they had stashed several cans of gasoline. The black haired teen began spreading it over the warehouse with Laura helping, they teleported out five minutes later as the warehouse began to go up in flames.

**XXX**

The park that they teleported to was a dark affair, most of the street lamps were out and it wasn't exactly well kept, it kind of made Raven wonder why their client had wanted to meet them here of all places but he kept his opinion to himself, money was money after all. The two mercenaries for hire walked towards their meeting point at a sedate pace.

"Look up at the stars, at the starry night sky," Sang an the voice of an older man as they got closer to the meeting point. There contact was already here it seemed, not that it really surprised them, he had been the one to set the place and time after all, it was have been very rude, not to mention hazardous to his health, had he not turned up. The two teens came upon their employer, John Kinton, a normal white collar insurance worker, who looked haunted, purple going on black bags were under his eyes. His body was thin like he hadn't been eating properly, but other than that he looked fine. The woman he had his arm around was far worse off, she did actually have black bags under her eyes, she was thin, to the point that it was a wonder that she was still alive, and her skin was beginning to discolour due to malnutrition and sleep deprivation. The teenage mercenaries stopped in front of the couple who were under one of the only still working street lamps inside the park.

"Is it done?" John asked not looking away from the woman that both knew was his wife.

"All but the ones that directly sold the drug to your son." Raven assured his employer who seemed satisfied at the news, not over joyed or brightened but satisfied. Laura looked at the woman and shook her head slightly. John looked over at his wife.

"She just passed away," He told them softly as if he might wake her should he talk to loud. "She saw our sons dead body after he overdosed, then she didn't eat for a month, I don't think she slept either." He told them and closed his eyes, "and when this is all over I too..." He trailed off but both mercenaries knew what he was trying to say, at the end of all this he would die as well, or to be more specific, he would kill himself.

"Here," The man said holding out a fat wad of bills, fifty thousand dollars, their fee for this job. "I trust the two of you so I'll pay you now," Laura took the money without complaint. Raven fished his Colt 1911 out of it's shoulder holster and ejected the magazine before handing it handle first to his client. Who looked at it strangely.

"Take it as an after sales service. There's still one shot left in it," Raven told the man. "It will make what you plan to do easier." The man didn't place his hand on the gun.

"But I won't be able to get it back to you, this could cause you problems." He told the two teen mercenaries, Raven shook his head and offered the gun again.

"Don't worry about it, there are none of our prints on the gun and it's easily replaced, please, take it." He finished still holding out the weapon, the man took the gun uncertainly and placed it inside the bag he had brought with him. The black haired teen placed his hand on his partners arm and disappeared in a flash of red.

**XXX**

Raven was woken to the sound of knocking on his front door. The black haired teen pulled himself out of bed and stumbled towards his front door wearing nothing but a pair of cargo pants. The apartment was neither overly small nor overly large, two bedrooms, one bathroom, one toilet, and a combined kitchen, living and dining area. Honestly Raven felt it was actually a steal for only three hundred and forty dollars a week. The only problem he had with the place was the fact that he had to use a Laundromat to clean Laura and his clothes, still there was one on the ground floor of the apartment complex so it wasn't that bad when he really thought about it.

The apartment was owned by one of the people that had hired them to do a job every now and then so they were able to rent it without too many questions being asked by the real estate agents that came around to see the place for inspections. Thank the lord for underworld contacts that paid well and looked after their sometimes employee's, so long as said employee's for hire didn't try to go against them. The door was knocked on again.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Raven grumbled under his breath as he walked towards the door. He checked the clock as he walked past, it was four thirty pm, that meant it was probably Jean. Both he and Laura actually lived quite close to the girls school and her home, he supposed it was a good thing as that way she could easily come to them for lessons and such. Though he was still debating on how old she had to be before they could start teaching her how to kill people. Granted both Laura and he had taught her some knife fighting and hand to hand combat to augment her Telekinetic and Telepathic gifts but neither was sure how to broach the subject of killing another human being with Jean.

Oh she knew that they killed people, they hadn't even tried to keep that from the red head. It would be a stretch to say that she was okay with it but she had at least come to terms with it, more or less. Raven opened the front door to see a smiling Jean Grey, the black haired mutant held in a sigh. He was not a morning person, or an afternoon person, or an evening person for that matter, Raven personally preferred to laze around in bed all day when he could get away with it. Which was nowhere near as often as he would like it to be.

"Afternoon boss!" Jean stated brightly, Raven held in a growl.

"Afternoon yourself, ready to get started?" He asked, standing away from the doorway allowing Jean inside. The red head walked inside still having that annoying hundred watt smile on her face. Raven, for all his apathy towards the human race felt bad when he heard how Jean had come to know about her mutant abilities.

Jean was from a well to do, but rather troubled, middle class family. As things turned out her family, on both sides, had a history of things like deviance, substance abuse, and overall underachievement. Her mother and father tried to stop the trend by focusing on stable careers and they were even successful to an extent.

But things kept coming up, from an early age Jean showed an ability for empathy, or at least that was the best that Raven could figure from her explanations. At any rate he knew a few things for sure. One, when her parents fought she was far more affected by it than normal children. Raven theorised that it was probably the early form of her Telepathy tapping into her parents emotions and confusing her.

The second thing Raven knew was that it was her older sister, Sara Grey, that had helped Jean whenever she had felt like she was going to be overwhelmed. However things kept happening that put a great deal of strain on Jean and Sara was always there to help her deal with them. Then one night when they were returning home after eating dinner at the restaurant that her mother managed they were involved in a car accident. Sara Grey died almost instantly, leaving a traumatised Jean. Her mother was originally thought to have become Paraplegic but that was latter proved wrong upon a more thorough medical diagnosis. Personally it was this diagnosis that Raven thought saved Jean more pain.

He had discreetly looked into what would have happened if the woman had become a paraplegic based on the injuries that she had received. The picture was not pretty, she probably would have been in constant pain and needed to take pain killers for the rest of her life. This would more than likely result in an eventual addiction that would probably, at least according to studies, made her somewhat paranoid and had Jean's mother, Elaine, lash out at people, putting even more strain on Jean.

From what little Jean had told him of her father during the time her mother was hospitalised and about to be declared a paraplegic he had turned, briefly, to drinking. Then stopped and come out of his depression as his wife got better. Raven could quite easily see the downward spiral that his part time apprentices life could have become if things had continued in that vein, he had wisely kept his conclusions to himself.

At any rate, as Jean's sister died in her arms her Telepathic abilities came to the forefront and allowed her to hear her sisters last thoughts, traumatising her further. The problem came when Jean didn't know how to turn her ability off again forcing her to hear most of the people she was around thoughts whether she wanted to or not. This naturally continued until Raven and Laura had shown up and had taught Jean how to lock her mind away from others unless she wanted to be able to read them, more or less providing an on and off switch for her abilities.

Raven was brought out of his musing as Jean waved a hand in front of his face.

"Earth to boss man, reply if you can hear us boss man." The red head told him, Raven shook his head a little and nodded.

"Sorry about that, what did you say again?" The black haired mutant inquired as the red head sat down on his couch.

"I asked where Laura is," Jean told him, Raven nodded, of course she had. It was an odd friendship those two had but who was he to question?

"She's out scoping out something for tonight." He replied, Jean's face went carefully blank, Raven knew that look.

"Your killing people again." His apprentice stated neutrally, Raven nodded and then sighed sitting down next to her.

"I know you don't like it and that's fine, you don't have to like it. I would actually be more concerned if you approved." Raven told her on no uncertain terms, causing Jean to look at him in slight surprise, the black haired mutant shrugged. "We are as people made us Jean, you were raised with morals of right and wrong, killing to you is firmly in the wrong. Laura and I on the other hand we were raised as weapons, we were trained to fight and kill since before we can remember we're used to killing. Besides you still don't know the one irrefutable truth to the world Jean, and until you do you probably wont be able to kill someone." Raven told his part time apprentice who looked at him strangely for a second.

"What truth would that be?" The red head asked him, there was no condemnation in her tone only honest curiosity. Raven placed a single hand on her shoulder and forced her to look him in the eye.

"Some people can't be saved, only stopped." The black haired mutant told her, an air of finality in his tone before his face brightened. "Still enough with all this dull stuff, time to tell you what you'll be working on today my young apprentice." Raven told her in his best Darth Sidious voice while he picked up a bucket of golf balls by the couch and smiled. "Today we shall be working on your shielding."

"Couldn't you have done Yoda instead?" Jean asked, "he was such a better character than Palpatine." The red headed Telekinetic complained, Raven smiled and Jean knew, she just knew, she had somehow made the training session worse for herself. Her fears were confirmed as twenty golf balls floated up and hovered in front of her part time master.

"Block my golf balls, you shall." Raven told her in a deadpan voice while shooting the white balls at his apprentice. Jean hastily threw up a haphazard barrier, she could wait this out, she wasn't overly good with barriers yet but she could hold off a single bucket full of golf balls before they started slipping through.

"Oh, by the way, I have another ten buckets ready and waiting." Raven told her in a happy voice, Jean had to hold in a sob as her part time teacher sent another wave of golf balls at her, life just wasn't fair.

**XXX**

Raven lamented somewhat that his night would be nowhere near as fun as his evening. After Jean had left, to the best of his knowledge her parents knew nothing about her abilities or that he was helping her harness and control them. They just thought she had made a couple of friends that she got along well with and went to their place every few days. Raven kept it to himself but he felt it was a bad decision on her part. Her parents were going to find out sooner or later, better it come from Jean's own mouth than from them walking into her room and seeing her practising with her Telekinesis. That would cause problems, a lot of problems.

That being said it wasn't like Raven couldn't see why she didn't want to tell her parents. Anti-Mutant sentiment was a growing force in the United States, Raven had heard horror stories that even he considered to be fucked up. Things like parents turning on children, brothers turning on sisters. All for them being mutants, he had heard about mutants being tortured and killed in some places by their own family, and he had heard about mutants torturing their families, intoxicated by their new found power. No it was not hard in the slightest to understand why Jean didn't want to tell her parents anything, that didn't mean that Raven thought that her choice was the right one.

At any rate his evening was not going to prove as interesting or as enjoyable as his time with his pseudo apprentice. The black haired mutant was standing outside of a warehouse on the out skirts of Los Angeles. His green eyed partner next to him, caressing her shotgun lovingly, she was way to attached to that thing. Seven men inside, remnants of the people they had been paid to eliminate, this was just a clean up job. The last little thing that needed doing before they could call the job finished. Granted since they had already been paid Raven supposed they could just let these bastards live but the professional inside of him just wouldn't let that happen, he took the job he would see it through to the end.

Dusk had long since descended on the area, thankfully no one was around. Raven didn't really care if humans got caught in the cross fire but rather that he would find it extremely annoying to have to hunt down witnesses. Wether he would kill them or just erase their memory of the event would depend completely on his mood. Laura threw him a look.

"How do you want to do this?" She asked him, checking her shotgun again. "Quick and clean or fast and dirty?"

"I really have to stop you from watching so much T.V." Raven deadpaned, Laura smiled slightly.

"Ah T.V the great American past time," the regenerator told him, Raven sighed.

"Need I point out that you, and probably I, are Canadian." The wind manipulator shot back, the girl shrugged and threw her hands in the air.

"Bah, semantics!" She declared giving him a mock glare. "Now make a damn choice!"

"Quick and clean," the green eyed mutant replied walking forward, casually stepping over the corpse of the men insides perimeter guard. The man had been killed by Laura severing his spine with a knife, quick, quiet, lethal. What could he say, she did good work.

"Really?" The Canadian mutant asked, sounding disappointed. Raven snorted.

"Fuck no," Was his reply as he took the safety off the pair of Uzi's he had brought with him and stood in front of the side door to the warehouse, "Lets have some fun." He stated, pulling the slide back on each gun and relishing the clicking noise it made as it slipped back into place. Laura smiled viciously as she walked around to the other side of the warehouse.

"Now you're talking my language!" The female mutant told him joyfully as he rechecked the shotgun for what Raven was sure was at least the sixth time since he'd got there. She disappeared around the side of the building, Raven began a slow count to one hundred. When he finally reached the number Raven pulled his leg back and kicked the door in. The sound echoed inside the mostly unused warehouse.

The sound made doubly as loud as Laura mimicked the action on the other side of the warehouse. Raven's eyes took in the seven men standing at the centre of the mostly empty building all of which were reaching down to grab a gun but didn't have one in their hands yet. Laura looked at the same scene from across the room and their first statement echoed the others perfectly.

"Catch you fuckers at a bad time!?" Came out of the two mutants mouths, then their guns came up. Laura's shotgun roared turning the first man's chest into what resembled hamburger meat. Raven's own guns came up the Uzi's spitting lead as they mowed down two men. The men were already moving as three of their number went down.

They were well trained and knew how to handle themselves in a fire fight, Raven would give them that. Against normal humans they probably would have even been successful in their retaliatory attacks. The problem was that they were not fighting normal humans, they were fighting two of what were possibly the best results that the Weapon program ever produced.

Bullets began to impact around him, Ravens breathing sped up. He could feel his blood racing through his veins, he could hear his heart beat in his ears his body was on fire he needed to move, he needed to kill them. Raven levelled the two Uzi's at the place where the most targets were, the black haired Mutant was vaguely aware of the roar of a shotgun from somewhere behind him. Raven went ahead and did what he always did in these kind of situations

"BUUUULLLEEETTTESSSSS!" The mutant screamed at the top of his lungs while firing incandescently at the group of targets he had picked out. The two men went down in a hail of led and sprays of blood. The two teen mercenaries turned to the last living member of the seven men who looked at them with fear plain in his eyes, the two teen mercenaries walked forward and levelled their guns at the man's head.

"Who are-" Was as far as he got, Laura pulled the trigger on her shotgun and reduced his head to nothing but mush. Raven looked around at the dead bodies and blood splatters before placing a hand on his partners arm, the two disappeared in a red flash. Screw cleaning this one up, the police could handle that.

**XXX**

It was a nice house neither too large nor too small, three bedrooms, a single bathroom, and a two car garage. The roof was tiled in red while the house itself was painted white, he gardens were well cared for and it would be plain for anyone to see that whoever lived their enjoyed a pastime of working in the garden, most of the roses were a vibrant red as they entered full bloom. The inside of the house was just as well cared for as the garden outside it. One could easily tell that the home was owned by someone that took pride in their house.

"Look up at the stars, at the starry night sky." John Kinton sang quietly, looking at a photo of his family before his son had died and both he had his wife had fallen into depression. The all looked so happy, he envied the old him, the one that could still laugh and smile with his family. If possible he actually looked worse than he did when he met his employee's two nights ago. The insurance worker looked down at the paper next to him, the head line made him smile. 'Gang members killed in violent shooting', John picked up the Colt 1911 and pulled the hammer back.

"Look up at the stars, at the starry night sky." A single gunshot echoed over the home, then everything was silent.

**XXX**

The black haired teen was woken to the sound of knocking on his front door. Raven pulled himself out of bed and stumbled towards his front door wearing nothing but a pair of cargo pants. The disgruntled black haired teen threw a look to the clock as he passed it in the kitchen, it was nine thirty in the morning. Who the hell was here at nine thirty in the morning on a Saturday? Even Jean knew not to bother him this early, Raven got out of bed before eleven on a Saturday for nobody.

That being said, whoever was at the door was being quite persistent, they had been knocking every forty five seconds for the past half hour, it was enough to make him get out of bed, if for no other reason than to tell them to fuck off before going back to bed. The black haired wind manipulator wrenched open his front door and growled.

His dumb, actually considering she was here before eleven make that his very dumb, apprentice stood in his door was a half smile on her face. Her eyes betrayed her she was exited and scared about something, Raven stood aside and flicked his head at the couch. If it was really that important he would listen before kicking her out, Jean didn't move, Raven cocked his head to the side in confusion.

"What's the problem?" He asked, Jean placed her fingers together in a vaguely guilty look and turned a sheepish smile on him. That wasn't good.

"Uh you remember that conversation we had a few months back about how you wished that there was some place to train with someone who knew about mutant abilities?" Jean asked him, Raven nodded. Oh yes he remembered that conversation, one of his more optimistic moments. "Well I may have found some place like that." She continued, Raven's brain shorted out, his red haired apprentice could almost see the error messages inside his eyes screaming 'does not compute'. "I got offered a place in a school for 'gifted' people and when the man who came to get me mentioned he had felt others like me nearby I thought I should come to you and tell you about it in case you wanted to come with me." Jean finished in a rush.

Raven's sense of danger went into overdrive, this was good, far to good to be true. The black haired mutant ordered the information that he had, forcing his brain back into working order. First, Jean had been offered a place in a school for 'gifted' people. He could reliably deduce that 'gifted' was a euphemism for mutant. Second, this school, if it really was a school, had training facilities for mutants. Third, the person that, apparently, ran the place was capable of training mutants and their abilities. Fourth, that person, if he was to be believed, could sense mutants and was willing to offer both Laura and he a place, or at least that was the impression that he got. The whole thing set off all kinds of alarms in his head, after all if it sounded to good to be true then ninety nine point nine percent of the time it was too good to be true.

"And who offered you this chance?" Raven asked, he would never admit it out loud but he was very, very, concerned that someone had done something to his apprentice. If this person, whoever they were, was giving her false hope their death would be neither quick nor painless.

"That would be me," The voice was rich and cultured. The kind of voice that you felt you could trust and listen to for hours on end, Raven compared it to Morgan Freeman's voice on the scale of voices that were nice to listen to. The whirling of a wheelchair was brought to the attention of the young mutant as he turned to face the man who had followed Jean. He was neither an old man nor a young one, it was quite obvious that he was a paraplegic. His head was bald, bright blue eyes looked at him, the man had a person behind him, she had white hair and was clearly of African decent. He knew these two, he had never met them, but he knew them.

"Jean go inside and wake up Laura she will need to be here for this," The wind manipulator told his part time apprentice while placing himself between her and the other two.

"But-" Jean started, Raven turned slightly and narrowed his eyes at her.

"Now!" He snapped at her, the red head flinched and quickly went inside. Raven turned his entire attention back to the two in front of him.

"Charles Xavier"

**XXX**

Raven woke up with a groan, as someone shook him awake. The green eyed teen cracked his eyes open a fraction to see his still part time apprentice Jean Grey shaking his shoulder. Raven threw one of his arms up in a vain attempt to ward off Jean's shaking, the black haired wind manipulator was beginning to think he liked it better when she was too scared to do this. He grunted as he sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"Fine, fine, I'm up, I'm up." The black haired teen told his red haired counter part irritably. She just smiled at him, Raven growled, Jean smiled wider.

"Come on sleepy head, you'll miss breakfast and your first day of school if you keep sleeping." Jean told him in an upbeat tone. Yes in the end both Laura and he had agreed to go with Xavier. He, if nothing else, could provide a somewhat safe haven from anyone who might want to come after them, though their were some concessions made by both sides to make the arrangement liveable.

First both Laura and he had to go to school, that was fine, they could live with that. In exchange however Xavier had to funnel the two of them paying jobs from the people he knew he could trust, both Laura and Raven used those jobs as a way to stay in shape and earn some cash and since they only worked for people the professor approved and would try to avoid killing people everybody won. Note the word try in that sentence.

Concession two, they weren't allowed to use their gun's inside the mansion. They had agreed under the stipulation that they could still practise with them, Xavier had agreed and set up a shooting gallery within the danger room. Once those things had been sorted out it was smooth sailing for everyone.

Raven shooed Jean out of his room as he got out of bed and picked up a towel and a fresh change of clothes, thankfully the school did not have a uniform, that made it a little better in his eyes. He had questioned why the mansion didn't act as a school as well as a place of sanctuary to Xavier. The simple answer was that there were too few mutants here to make that a real option. After all the only people that could teach here would have been Xavier himself and Ororo and they had a lot of other things to do besides instruct a very small amount of mutants in everyday subjects.

In fact to the best of Raven's knowledge only six mutants including himself were currently at the mansion. Though Xavier did mention that when more mutants came, and come they would Raven had no doubt about that, he would look more seriously into turning the mansion into a school proper.

The mutants inside the mansion were Laura, Jean, another teenager by the name of Scott Summers who could fire concussive blasts out of his eyes, Raven actually thought it was pretty cool even if his personality could use some work at times. Xavier and Ororo, still Raven had little doubt that the mansions occupants would expand in time. The black haired wind manipulator stepped out of the shower and dried himself off putting on his clothes for the day, he snorted when he realised they were the same clothes that he had worn on the day he first met Jean, before walking down to breakfast.

When he entered the dining room the others were already there each nodded to him or said hello, Raven ignored them and poured himself a cup of coffee.

"Raven I need to speak with you for a moment." Raven took his cup of coffee with him as he walked towards the wheelchair bound professor.

"Yes, Charles?" The teen asked, he rarely called Xavier professor he preferred the man's first and last names, less formal that way and both Laura and he hated formality. The bald man smiled as if knowing what he was thinking, Raven checked his mental shields, no they definitely hadn't been breached.

"Your name when we enrol you into Bayville High School, what would you like to be called?" Charles asked him politely, the man had advised against using the name Raven so that he could keep it as his mutant designation. The black haired wind manipulator had agreed, albeit reluctantly. The green eyed mutant looked at the ceiling of the dining room as if looking for inspiration. Then chose a name deliberately for it's outlandishness and subtle reference to his mutant designation.

"Tell them my name is Odin Mimir," Raven told the professor smirking, the man seemed to think the same as he had a small smile on his face.

"Ah yes the king of the Norse gods, he is associated with war, battle, victory and death, but also with wisdom, Shamanism, magic, poetry, prophecy, and the hunt. The god who is almost always seen accompanied by two Raven's. A good a choice as any I suppose," Xavier told the teleporter.

"And somehow I'm not surprised you know that." Raven, now called Odin, replied. "Besides it'll only be a face name, anywhere else I'll be called Raven anyway might as well have a little fun with it." The black haired mutant responded nonchalantly, the professor nodded and picked up his paper to begin reading. The headline caught his attention, 'Man Commits Suicide After Death of Wife and Child' the picture of a very familiar looking gun beneath it. 'The after sales service?' Raven wondered before shaking it off, he had more important things to attend to, like breakfast.

**Chapter Two- End**


	3. Chapter 3

**Weapon: Origin**

**Chapter Three: Time Marches On**

**Author's note-**

Yeah look as more than one person has been more than ready to ask me, for good reason I might add, is Harry a wizard? I really should have cleared this up in chapter one as he may as well be a super powered OC right now. So to put everyone's questions to rest, yes he is a Wizard, and yes the Harry Potter books will come into the mix at a later date. There will be three story arc's including the current one before that happens, the story arc's after this one are the First X-men movie and an arc called Death Mask's, respectively.

Also the ages for Hogwarts have been changed, they now start school at twelve and continue on until they are nineteen with a further five years that can be taken if the person wishes to go through what is effectively magical university. Also all muggle subjects are taught in addition to the magical ones. This will be a magical world that is far more integrated with the muggle one.

Also I got asked why I changed the Hogwarts Starting age by only a year rather than keep it in cannon considering how close I left it. The simple reason for this is that I want the events of book four of the Harry Potter series to happen when my continuations Harry is sixteen. Mostly because then his age matches up with how old Rouge is, or at least how old I think she is, in the first X-men movie. No I do not ship Harry X Rouge though I do like the pairing I'm doing it more for the connivance of doing the first X-men movie now and getting Rouge into the story so I can use some of the X-men evolution story lines rather than wait until Harry Potter book six to do so. At any rate enjoy chapter three.

Also while it was somewhat subtle there was a fair bit of foreshadowing in the last two chapters if you know where to look for it, let the mass guessing commence. Oh while I'm at it, I have no idea what kind of car Scott drives in X-men evolution so now he drives a 1968 corvette stingray convertible.

Also there is a small addition to the authors note at the end of the chapter.

**Story Start- **

Raven yawned as he leaned back, allowing a nearby laser to go harmlessly over his head. The black haired green eyed mutant spun on the balls of his feet, his right arm whipping out and sending a blade of wind at the offending piece of equipment cutting off it's power cord cleanly. Another danger room session tonight, perhaps Jean had been right when she accused him of training to much, maybe he should have gone to that football game. But Raven just couldn't help the fact he found the sport boring, watching a bunch of guys throw a ball and try to get to one end of the field to the other vs a night in the danger room, Raven would take the danger room ten times out of ten.

The green eyed mutant rolled out of the way of a large metal ball that aimed to crush him before sending another blade of wind at the offending object that had fired the ball. A flame thrower spat its deadly payload at him, Raven smiled at the machine and disappeared in a flash of red. Reappearing on top of the weapon and casually shredding it with a blade of wind. He was used to these kind of sessions in the danger room by now, it had been three years since Laura, Jean and he had turned up at the institute and that was more than enough time to become well acquainted with this particular room.

Raven yawned again, the current danger room had a grand total twenty two different levels. One being the easiest and twenty two being the hardest, the green eyed mutant was currently on level seven and was practically sleep walking through it. Not that it surprised him, or Ororo who was watching the younger mutant from above inside the control room. Raven had taken to learning some wind manipulation from Ororo and in return he taught her some of the little tricks he had come up with, like how to condense the air around him into blades or using vibrations in the air to pick up when someone was coming towards you.

Though even Raven voluntarily admitted that the second one was a bit of a hit and miss. It required a heap of concentration so it more or less stopped you doing anything else and even then it wasn't fool proof, that being said at times it was helpful.

If Ororo was right then, theoretically at least, it was possible for Raven to become the stronger wind manipulator of the two. That, however, was a day that was still a long way off though so Raven didn't dwell on it too much. Another metal ball flew at him from a different angle, the black haired mutant sighed before cutting it in half and then forcing the halves into the other machines around him.

"Danger Room, level increased to nine, combat commences." Came the hard robotic voice from above him, Raven just yawned again as he dodged out of the way of yet another laser trying to kill him.

**XXX**

Ororo Munroe, better known as Storm, watched on with interest as her unofficial apprentice dodged another attack that tried to take his head from his shoulders. The white haired mutant looked down and checked the teens heart rate, there was no change in it at all, he wasn't even getting the slightest bit stressed by what was happening. Result of his training she guessed, both he and Laura spent far too much time doing that.

Ororo knew for a fact that both were up at five am every day baring Saturdays and Sundays to do some physical training followed by some light sparring. When they came back from school they did danger room sessions with the others followed by some personal firearms practice then another light sparring session before bed. Ororo honestly wondered how he found the time to study.

"Increase danger room level to nine." The white haired weather witch stated causing the computer to beep as it raised the level. The pace of the attacks increased, Raven moved faster, his body twisting and changing direction faster than should be possible, thanks to his highly valued reflexes. Ororo checked the heart rate monitor again, still no change. The element using mutant smiled, this was going to be fun.

**XXX**

Laura sighed, oh man this was boring. Maybe Raven was the one with the bright idea of staying in the danger room for an extend session. Because this was boring as watching paint dry, sure there were cheerleaders in skimpy outfits but they lost their appeal after awhile. It was a small thing that Laura had discovered about herself, she enjoyed watching both men and woman, was she bisexual? Well to be honest she wasn't really sure, but she had nothing against looking at a good looking man or woman.

Still it was boring out at this football game, Laura had turned up because Jean had asked her to come while she cheered on her boyfriend, a blond by the name of Derik, or was it Duncan? More importantly, did she care? At any rate Laura was here to help cheer on Jean's boyfriend who was on the football team and that Raven had said, and she quoted, 'If he breaks her heart I'll rip out his and show it to him' about, Raven really didn't like Derik, or was it Duncan?

Not that it was a rare thing, Raven didn't like most people. But Jean and she were his 'berserk buttons', so to speak. When people threatened Laura or Jean while Raven was around they generally didn't survive his reprisal. At any rate, what was she thinking about again? Oh yes how absolutely bored out of her skull she was, Laura sighed. She should never agreed to this, dodging lasers and other sharp implements of death was far more fun in her book. Maybe she was just strange that way, she really wished that Xavier hurried up and got the virtual reality part of the training room up and running soon, that was going to be so much fun!

Laura looked dully up at the scoreboard and sighed, reason two she was bored out of her skull. This was not a game but a slaughter, the team that Jean's boyfriend was on was up by thirty two points with only five minutes left, this was over. The Canadian looked down, a hand came out from beneath the bleachers and pulled the wallet out of the back pocket of the man sitting in front of her. Laura smiled as he got up, excusing herself from the game as she headed down the stairs a spring in her step. Three of the members of the football team, Jean's boyfriend included, past by her heading towards the back of the bleachers, Laura followed them discreetly. It seemed they all had the same idea.

The black haired teenager looked into the darkness beneath the bleachers and smiled, just like she had thought. Todd Tolensky was her thief, well it wasn't like he would have that money much longer anyway if she had her way.

Todd was a teen of middling size and appalling personal hygiene. Pale white skin and yellowing teeth, if she coupled that with his abrasive personality the pickpocket was not exactly the most well liked of individuals. Accosting the miserable whelp were three members of the football team, Laura had no idea who two of them were but she was pretty sure one of them was Derik, or was it Duncan?

"Duncan I can explain!" The toad like boy said to one of the three larger boy's surrounding him. Laura nodded to herself, so his name was Duncan! The blond haired quarter back looked down at Todd in disdain, not that Laura considered that to be hard, it was probably harder to not look at Tolensky without disdain.

"Shut up frog face," Duncan growled while picking the pale white boy off the ground and slamming him into a support post of the bleachers, Laura sighed and began to walk towards the four.

"Let's crush him Dunc!" One of the other two proclaimed gleefully, Laura sighed, she couldn't let that happen.

"Lets not," She interjected into their conversation causing the three footballers to turn and stare at her. "He is rather valuable to me right now after all." Laura continued as she stalked forward, her walk projecting a mixture of feminine grace and animalistic fury. The blond that Jean was dating looked at her for a second.

"Look leave before you get hurt," he offered her. Laura laughed, it was a rich and pleasant sound, as if she was about to breakout into song.

"You? hurt me?" She asked incredulous as one of the boys began to walk slowly towards her. Laura's entire posture changed, from feminine grace to a hunters pose. "You really are a deluded fool aren't you," Duncan sighed and nodded to the boy who had been walking forward.

"Go on then Mike," He told one of his lackeys resignedly. The one called Mike stretched his arms out to grab her, Laura ducked low and slipped past him, her right arm came up and slammed a palm strike into the boys chin snapping his head back. Her right leg lashed out and snapped the boys knee, he would not be playing football again any time soon, if ever. The other of the two lackeys charged, Laura spun on the balls of her feet, the blade of her left foot coming straight through the visor of the helmet the boy was wearing and breaking his nose. The black haired Canadian seemed to flow forward and grabbed the boys left arm and twisted, the lackey found himself weightless before coming crashing back down onto the pavement. He didn't attempt to get back up.

Duncan and Tolensky were looking at her like they had never seen her before, Laura flowed forward her left arm snapping out in a vicious palm strike to Duncan's chin and catching him squarely. Laura put more force behind the blow than she did with the other two, Duncan's eyes rolled up into his head as he was knocked unconscious. Laura added a hard kick to his balls, just for the hell of it. The Toad like teen looked at her in slight awe.

"Th-" was as far as he got, Laura's arm lashed out in a powerful back fist slamming Todd's head back into the support post of the bleachers, a crunch was heard as his nose broke. The mutants eyes rolled into the back of his head, Laura reached down and pulled out the teens wallet. A wallet which was now nice and fat from all the money Tolansky had stolen, Laura smiled to herself as she took the cash and placed it in her pocket before bowing to the fallen Toad.

"Thank you very much for your kind donation." Laura told the unconscious mutant as she walked out from under the bleachers whistling. The black haired mutant made it back to her seat and slid in next to Jean who was looking around the field.

"Have you seen Duncan?" The red head asked, Laura held in a smile. Ever since she had been taught how to block off her mind Jean tried to avoid using her telepathy unless she had no other choice, Laura shrugged.

"Nope," The Canadian mutant responded, feeling a whole lot better about the night out with all the money she had liberated on her.

**XXX**

Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep,Bee- CRUNCH, Raven's hand slammed down on the top of the alarm clock as he grumbled and slipped out of bed. The black haired teen shook his head, trying to clear the haze of sleep from it. He looked at the clock, five am, oh well, he could have hoped that it was later he hated getting up early but it was the price he had to pay in order to stay in top condition, only Laura and he got up this early. Though he had occasionally seen Charles and Ororo up at the same time or earlier, but that was rare. They tended to get up at six thirty like Jean, who would then join them for a small amount of hand to hand combat training with Scott joining them off and on depending on how late the man had been up the night before for homework or danger room sessions.

The black haired mutant shrugged on his work out clothes, sneakers, track pants and a long sleeved white shirt with blotchy brownish red stains on it and walked out of his room, no point in showering, he was only going to stink something awful when he got back anyway. Raven half walked half dragged himself out of his room, and smiled upon seeing Laura in a similar state, the two grunted at each other in greeting as they half drag-walked towards the front doors of the institute.

The air outside held an edge of cold to it, both former science experiments smiled. It was times like this that reminded them of their first time in the outside world. The sharpness of the wind, the vibrancy of the colours, the way that the water looked so fresh and clean. Even now it stirred feelings of joy from the two. Laura began to stretch and Raven followed her lead, before moving into some light exercises, only one hundred push up sit ups and squats, before stretching the now warm muscles again. The black haired mutant stood up, his female counter part mirroring his action.

"So, shall we start with some parkour?" Laura teased him, Raven smiled back and nodded. What they were doing wasn't really parkour, they had never learned it. It was more of a bastardised version of the sport. The two just picked a location and then ran there as fast as humanly possible while not using their powers, they couldn't do all those really cool looking spins and flips but they were fast and thanks to the information download they did know how to climb and land properly. That being said when they found a decent parkour gym they were both determined to go and try it out.

"You can pick the location," Raven told his counterpart with a nod. Laura smiled, and looked at the gates in the distance, before smiling wider.

"We'll do a circuit," the female mutant responded. "The finish line is right here, first you have to make it to the gate, after that you have to run the entire perimeter while not using the wall to run on, no avoiding the trees down below you have to move through them. When we reach the gate again we have a final straight dash back to here." Laura told him excitedly, Raven nodded and his muscles tensed. "Ready?" The girl asked, he nodded. "GO!" The word was roared from Laura's lips and the two took off, the Xavier institute for gifted youngsters had wide and spacious grounds, they would get a real workout from running the perimeter.

**XXX**

There were a lot of things that people didn't know about Jean Grey, or at least there were a lot of things that weren't common knowledge. One of the major things that most people didn't know was that Jean Grey was not a morning person. Oh she may seem like a morning person but she wasn't, the reason she was always so bright and chipper when she woke up was simple, Jean had managed to sneak a coffee machine into her room, hidden inside her dresser.

Mostly because she didn't feel like waiting for coffee in the morning, especially when there were caffeine junkie's like Raven and Laura around, she probably would have had to wait by the coffee machine downstairs for a good half an hour before those two let anyone else near it, Jean just didn't want to go through the trouble.

The red head smiled as she nursed her first, though most definitely not last, coffee of the morning. Before looking at the clock, six fifteen she would need to be outside soon, she wondered if Scott would be coming, probably not, he had been up rather late last night working on his biology homework.

The red head shrugged and downed the rest of her coffee before pouring herself another cup and sipping it. She liked Scott, sure he had moments where he was very gloomy due to not being able to look at people with his own eyes but other than that he was an alright kind of guy. Though he was a bit uptight about the rules and training, she used to be like that as well, up until a pair of borderline psychotic mercenaries had, literally, dropped into her life and offered her training.

Jean chuckled at the memory, she had once told Raven that she thought he was boarderlining on psychotic. Her black haired part time instructor had laughed at her and replied 'there's nothing borderline about it', Jean chuckled and agreed. Still those two, Raven and Laura, were the good kind of crazy, not the bad kind of 'take over the world' crazy. Somehow the two managed to be charming with it as well, it made them hard not to like, unless you pissed them off, then they became the easiest people in the world to hate. Jean shivered, she could tell you that from personal experience.

The red head pulled on her training gear, nothing to out there. It would be rather pointless if she ruined good clothes while training to fight, just some sneakers some pants and finally a long sleeved shirt, she had gotten into the habit of wearing one of those since she found out how cold it could be early in the morning, Jean smiled as she finished her cup of coffee and walked out the door, from the foyer, she could already see the two regenerators sparring.

Well sparring was putting it nicely. In Martial Arts sparring generally consisted of two or more people simulating a real fight but without the intent to really harm or kill their opponents, mostly for fear of temporarily or permanently injuring their sparring partner. The two regenerators had no such problems, every punch, kick, throw and lock was thrown with the same amount of force they would use if they were against a real enemy. They were also not wearing any padding or protective gear, the two regenerators always tried to simulate battle as close as possible to the real thing, that meant no protective gear or pulling their punches. Besides for them it would only hurt for a second.

Even though she couldn't hear them Jean could still see the result of the attack, Laura's fist flew forward and Raven's nose splattered over the side of his face as the fist made a solid connection. His own leg rose and slammed into the girl side, Laura jumped back, Jean could tell that Raven's blow had broken a rib, Laura's wound healed just as fast as it had been made. As was the broken nose that she had delivered to her male counterpart.

Raven raced forward, his right arm lashing out in a swift punch at the girls sternum, Laura jumped and her leg lashed out, Raven tried to turn, it didn't work, the girls knee collided with his face with bone breaking force. Jean could see the black haired males jaw break from the strike, it healed almost immediately. Then they stopped, the timer must have gone off, they normally set it for ten minute sessions and by the end of each were covered with a mixture of sweat and blood, Jean sighed and walked out the front door, might as well get started.

The two mercenaries gave a tired wave as she walked towards them, Raven stood up and waved her over as he took up a Jujitsu stance, it seemed her training would be continuing on in that Martial Art. Jean was one of the few people who had been told about how the two mercenaries had been, for lack of a better term, engineered. She was also privy to the fact that they had information directly downloaded to their minds, information that included some forms of Martial Arts. Not that either Raven or Laura could be called a master of any of the arts that they knew about. They had the knowledge of the styles but not the practice with them, they were correcting that now.

From what she had been told it wasn't like either Raven or Laura's body's knew how to move instinctively or anything like that, no. It was more like they knew the forms and stances for the Martial Arts, they could see them inside their heads but their body's didn't know how to use them correctly yet, that was what all the training was for.

No point in knowing them if they couldn't be used after all. Their bodies had been conditioned for hand to hand combat after all but the reactions were not second nature yet and as Raven had once told her when it came to hand to hand combat those reactions needed to be second nature. Jean placed a smile on her face and prepared for pain.

"So what first boss man?" The red haired Telepath asked, the smile she received in return was not encouraging in the least.

**XXX**

Raven yawned as he walked towards the garage, it had been six months since he had got his licence and car. The black haired wind manipulator could honestly say that he had never been more glad that Laura and he had a fair bit of money saved up, his share let him buy a killer car. That being said his share also took a major hit from doing just that, still looking at the dark blue Rx-7 Raven could honestly say it was worth every penny.

The teen yawned again as he got into the drivers seat, Scott's 1968 corvette stingray convertible was already missing, which in turn meant that the man himself was already gone. He knew Laura was gone already, her Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R was gone, that meant she wasn't here because hell would freeze over before Laura let anyone else ride that bike.

The green eyed mutant sighed and slipped into the drivers seat of the RX-7 and inserted the key, he couldn't help the smile that came to his face as the engine roared to life. Raven smiled, today was going to be a good day.

"Wait!" a familiar voice yelled from the edge of the garage, Raven looked up to see his still part time apprentice leaning against the door frame to the garage looking out of breath. The green eyed mutant gained a small smile on his face as he looked at the red head.

"You took to long getting cleaned up after this morning didn't you, so Scott left without you to make sure he got to school on time, well am I right?" Raven asked, half teasing. Jean nodded resignedly, the black haired mutant gained a small smile on his face. "Well now you're going to be late, so what's your excuse going to be miss perfect?" Raven teased, Jean threw him a dirty look.

"My excuse is going to be that I had to catch the bus as Scott left early," She told her part time teacher sulkily, before shooting him another dirty look. "Besides you're going to be late as well, what's your excuse!?" Jean asked, Raven shrugged.

"I turn up ten minutes late for just about every class we have, they've long since stopped caring about my excuses ever since I used that one about having to fight ninja's to the death in the car park." The teen finished unapologetically while internally smiling at the look of utter disbelief on Jean's face. The red head walked over and let herself in, Raven just looked at her with one eyebrow raised.

"Just drive the damn car," Jean told him, Raven chuckled and threw the Rx-7 into first. Today was going to be a good day.

**XXX**

As things turned out Raven was right, that day was a good day for him. He turned up ten minutes late to, almost, every class. Enjoyed a free lunch from Laura due to the money she had 'liberated' before heading on back to the mansion. All in all Raven considered it to be a very good day, the best part however was definitely what Charles had asked him to do at the end of the day, Storm and He were to 'audition' a new candidate. Todd Tolensky. Personally Raven believed that the toad had no chance in hell of actually passing said 'audition' but Xavier had insisted and so Raven found himself standing on top of the institute watching the perimeter like a hawk.

His clothing was far removed from the casual clothes he normally dressed in. Xavier had offered to make Laura and he X-men suits but they had partially declined. While they had agreed to get suits they didn't want them to be as gaudy as some of the suits they had seen and the professor was willing to humour them and let them go custom. Raven's was simple, black combat boots with grey laces, black pants, grey under shirt with black jacket, a small silver X on his right hand shoulder, the only one on his entire uniform, and black gloves. The entire uniform had been reinforced with ceramic plates and kevlar and included extra pockets for him to store ammunition in.

As much as Raven did not consider Tolensky a threat he still had a fair amount of weapons on his person. A pair of pistols on his thighs, his normal Colt 1911 of course, the belt crossed over his hips was carrying a sawn-off shotgun on the back of it. Three flash bang and three incendiary grenades were also attached to the belt. A pair of combat knives in each boot and another on each shoulder, the look was completed by the pair of katana on his back in an X. Raven found it a little strange that out of Laura and him only he had any idea on how to use a sword. Then again the Canadian mutant could use her claws easily enough so maybe the scientist saw no point, Raven really didn't know.

What he did know was that if Xavier was right then theoretically he would eventually be able to use his swords and reflexes in perfect sync and, supposedly, be able to cut bullets out of mid air or deflect them. Raven checked his gear again, he didn't actually expect to need any of it, or use any of it for that matter, but it would be fun to see Tolensky's face when they saw each other, Raven had brought a camera with him for just that reason.

'Raven,' Charles deep voice resonated inside the green eyed mutants head.

'Yes Charles?' the black haired mutant responded, he didn't like doing this but for the sake of Xavier being able to quickly reach him without the need for a radio he had agreed to lower his shields for the duration of Tolensky's 'audition'.

'Master Tolensky is being herded towards the foyer, be a dear and greet him please.' Xavier requested, Raven's smile grew to maniac levels as he teleported in a flash of red to the entrance hall of the institute just as Tolensky jumped inside as lightning flashed in the sky, courtesy of Storm. Raven gave the teen a once over as the Toad jumped towards him. Tolensky was a teen of middling size and appalling personal hygiene. Pale white skin and yellowing teeth, in fact the only thing that Raven could say was different about the boy than when he saw him at school was his outfit. White boots, green pants, green shirt, white gloves with some kind of white jacket like thing on his back.

The toad like boy's head turned to look at him, having been turned behind him watching for Storm when he had executed the jump, and went even more pale than he was normally when he saw Raven. The black haired mutant's right arm blurred as his reflexes came into play and snagged the camera off of his belt, that look of surprise mixed with fear and awe that had been exactly what he had been looking for! The the borderline psychotic teen took three photos before his left leg snapped up and delivered a vicious front kick to Tolensky's face, re-breaking the nose that had only been set the day before. Todd was thrown backwards by the impact but quickly righted himself in mid air and landed on his feet.

"The hell you ass, what the hell did you do that for!" Tolansky yelled at the uncaring Raven before realising the amount of deadly implements on the other mutant and paling drastically, and that was saying something.

"Oh I don't know, why are you breaking and entering toad boy?" Raven shot back and got an indigent huff in return.

"It looked interesting," Toad told him sounding like a scolded chold, Raven shrugged and inwardly smiled as he saw Tolensky's pale skin pale further as the pair of Colt 1911's were drawn off his hips and he flicked the safety off. At the beginning of this little dance Raven had no intention of using the weapons but had changed his mind, not because he needed to use them, rather because he felt like having some fun. The black haired green eyed mutants smile became even more psychotic, if that was even possible.

"BUULLLEEETTTTSSSSSSSS!" Raven screamed at the top of his lungs, firing indiscriminately at the other teenager. Though in his defence the black haired teen only aimed at Toad's feet and avoided any vital area's when he aimed higher. Tolensky was doing his best just staying out the way of the multiple bullets attempting to open new holes in him. He was succeeding too, though most of that could easily be attributed to the fact that Raven was trying as best he could not to hit him.

"THAT'S RIGHT! DANCE, BITCH, DANCE! HAHAHAAHHAHAHHAAHAHHHAHHAHAH AHHAHAHHA!" The black haired mutant slowly became slightly more unhinged as the 'fight' wore on before mastering himself and placing the guns back inside their holsters and calmed himself. Deep breaths in and out, Raven gave the foyer a quick once over, he'd only hit the ground and the walls, thank God. The green eyed teen didn't even want to think of how much Xavier could bill him for if he hit one of the paintings. Tolansky was stuck to the ceiling looking down at him in abject horror.

"The hell man, it was like you were really trying to kill me!" The toad like mutant yelled down, Raven put on his best slasher smile as he looked up at his fellow mutant causing Todd to flinch.

"Who said I wasn't?" Raven replied, pulling the shotgun out of his hip harness and pointing it in the toad's direction, the mutant blanched.

"ENOUGH!" Charles Xavier's normally tranquil voice roared over the foyer. Raven immediately holstered his shotgun, he really didn't want to pay for any more damages than he really needed to, also it was really, really, bad form to deliberately antagonise someone who's house you lived in, if only he could have remembered that before he went bullet crazy.

Ororo put her hand on his shoulder, Raven took a deep breath in and out calming himself further. It was doubtful he would go into another bullet frenzy like that but he wanted to make sure. Raven would be the first person to admit he was, slightly, mentally unhinged but he was getting better. He had been through a few fire fights since joining up with Xavier and this was the first time he had gone into a bullet frenzy since then, he and Charles were having counselling sessions, they seemed to be helping. Raven guessed that something about fighting a mutant got his blood boiling and made it easier for him to go into a blood rage.

"From that little display that Mr Tolensky put on he does indeed have the X-gene and thus could become one of us but that is up to him." Xavier's voice echoed inside the entrance hall, none of the other three people in the room wanted to interrupt. Ororo because she wanted to hear what Charles had to say, Raven as he was trying to avoid drawing more attention to himself and if he was lucky get out of paying for damages and Toad as he was afraid that if his voice was heard the psycho below him might start shooting again.

"However the choice is yours Todd Tolensky, would you like to stay here and learn to harness your gift or leave?" Xavier asked, prompting Toad to speak. The pale mutant looked down and visibly relaxed at seeing that Ororo still had her hand on Raven's shoulder, he seemed to think that as long as the woman had her hand on the black haired mutant he wouldn't go bullet crazy, luckily for Todd he was correct.

"If it's all the same to you I'd just like to leave without my diet becoming to high in lead." Todd voice shakily, Charles nodded and the toad like mutant jumped straight out the front door, Raven's hand blurred and one of the Colt's were drawn and aimed at the fleeing mutant. Unlike before however he wouldn't shoot without either Xavier's or Ororo's say so.

"Let him go Raven," Ororo said from behind him, the black haired mutant holstered the gun and looked back at Xavier.

"I'm not going to like what's about to happen am I?" The green eyed mutant asked the retrocaecal question, prompting both Charles and Ororo to smile at the incorrigible teen with a more than slight amount of fondness.

"No I expect not," Ororo told him, Raven just sighed and hung his head.

"You'll be on probation for two weeks," Xavier told him, Raven smiled a little, that wasn't too bad. "And you will be pulling all the bullets out of the floor the walls and the ceiling by hand," Raven sighed, okay that would be a pain but he could live with that. "Also you will have to attend another course on gun safety." Professor X finished.

"Fuck"

"Add another two day's to your probation for swearing." Ororo told him, Raven barely held in another curse word.

**Chapter Three- End**

Okay last little addition to the authors note, the fact that when Raven straps on all his weapons he bares a slight resemblance to Deadpool is deliberate, and not just because I like Deadpool. There is more to the story there and will be explored more when I write the X-men the movie 2 into this fan fic, bye for now!


	4. Chapter 4

**Weapons: Origin **

**Chapter Four: Blueberry Pancakes **

**Authors Note-**

Hello and welcome to chapter four.

The more Important news here is that this is the end of the introduction arc and next chapter starts the Death Masks arc. Originally it was going to be X-men the movie then Death Masks but I decided to put it the other way around for a number of reasons related to plot that I will not be discussing, at least for now, there is also a fair bit of Jean's POV this chapter now, please enjoy chapter four.

Also while I think about it I was asked this once, 'Is there a reason that when Raven/Harry kills someone he thinks about food after?'

I think this is a good question and deserves an answer. The reason that Harry thinks about food or some other mundane thing after killing someone is quite simple. It is to highlight his sociopathic tenancies, he doesn't consider killing to be bad or wrong in most cases so unlike some other people after he's done it he does not consider it important any more and his mind moves onto other concerns. I hope that answered your question.

**Story Start- **

The green eyed mutant yawned as he got out of the shower, yet another dull morning the only thing he was really looking forward to now that his sparring session with Laura was over was driving his Rx-7 to school. He really loved that car, it was totally worth the massive hit his bank account had taken when he brought it. Laura had already left, she wanted to ride her bike for a bit before heading into school, Scott and Jean were gone as well, the former giving the latter a lift so they could talk to their geology teacher before class started, that left only him at the X-mansion, they really needed a better name for it, Raven just found the current one so unimaginative.

"Raven could you come here for a second?" Xavier's voice echoed from the library, Raven shrugged, what was another few minutes?

"Sure Charles," The green eyed regenerator called back, his sneakers not making a sound as he walked, sure Raven knew he could just teleport but both Xavier and Ororo had asked him to avoid using his powers outside of the danger room, Raven had reluctantly agreed. The black haired green eyed mutant walked into the library and stopped. Standing next to the wheelchair bound Charles Xavier was a young man with blue skin, sharp elf like ears, three fingers and toes his eyes held yellowish white irises.

Raven checked his initial impulse, said impulse being to throw a blade of air at the intruder with the aim of taking his head off his shoulders. The wheelchair bound mutant nodded as if he had passed some kind of test, then again, knowing Charles it was entirely possible he had.

"Good I see you managed to meet Kurt without incident. You're getting better at controlling those impulses of yours. Now if only we could get you to curb your bullet spraying ones," Charles joked as he looked between Raven the the blue mutant who was apparently named Kurt. Kurt looking more than a little freaked out at hearing Raven might have shot at him if he had a weapon. The black haired mutant sighed and walked forward extending his hand.

"Nice to meet you Kurt, in the mansion you can call me Raven, Outside Odin or Mimir, whichever you prefer." The black haired mutant told his blue haired counterpart with a smile, the blue teen was hesitant about taking his hand but did it in the end, Raven noted that it was furry.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Kurt replied with a hint of a German accent, some of his wariness disappearing as they talked a little. Xavier looking on with a peaceful expression on his face. "Out of interest why do you have two different names? And why are they both so, outlandish?" It took quite a lot of Raven's formidable mental fortitude not to flinch at the question, remembering the scientists was one thing, voluntarily talking about them was completely different. Oh he could do it, and did on occasion, but Raven preferred not to if he could avoid it. The green eyed teen tried to think up a response that would both satisfy the inquisitive blue skinned teen and safely divert the conversation, he didn't have much luck. Fortunately the wheelchair bound professor X came to his rescue.

"Ah that's quite simple Kurt, almost every member of this institute has a kind of call name that the others refer to them by, in Odin's case his call name is Raven. Due to something's in his past Raven can't remember his real name and chose Odin as a replacement." Xavier finished smiling, Kurt nodded slowly.

"But if he likes it so much why not just use it for his real name? Why go through the trouble of making a new name up?" The blue furred teen asked, Raven sighed internally, the other teen really was a curious one. Even if he was probably more curious than he should be. Charles seemed to consider the question for a second. This time it was Raven who chose to come to the wheelchair bound professors rescue.

"That ones simple, we call each other by our mutant designation when we're training or occasionally fighting other mutants. I wanted to keep the name Raven for that so I chose a new one for interacting with the rest of the world. I suppose it could have gone the other way but this is the way it ended up." The green eyed teen finished a smile on his face. Kurt nodded and Raven turned his attention back to Xavier.

"Not that I'm not glad to meet you Kurt but I really do need to get going, was there anything else you wanted professor?" Raven asked looking up at the clock on the library wall, forget ten minutes late he was going to be at least twenty.

"Actually yes there is," Xavier told him causing Raven to look at the older man curiously for a second. "Would you mind giving Kurt a lift to school, it's his first day and there's no need to make him later than he needs to be," Raven gave the blue teen a quick up and down once over taking in all of the things that marked Kurt as a mutant.

"Okay I guess I can do that." Raven allowed, the blue mutant smiled and hit a button on the watch that Raven had just noticed, his form seemed to waver for a second before a normal teenager appeared in the blue teens place. Though Raven did note that both had the same hair colour, the green eyed mutant looked back at the bald man. "Image inducer?" He guessed, Charles nodded.

"Yes, similar to the technology that will be used in the upgraded danger room, though be aware Kurt that your body only looks different. If anyone touches you they will feel the real you under the illusion." The professor advised, Kurt nodded his head so fast that Raven thought he might break his own neck. "Now why don't you go get your things and meet Raven by the garage." Xavier suggested, Kurt nodded and walked away to grab his bag, Raven turned and faced the professor his face all business.

"You have something for me?" It wasn't a question, Xavier, while he didn't entirely agree with what Raven and Laura did he would occasionally pass on job offers to them from people he approved. Under normal circumstances what they did were small things, tracking people down, finding things out, normal simple things that they got paid for. But every now and then Xavier would give them something special, an assassination contract. The bald man only ever passed on people that the police couldn't or wouldn't touch but that didn't mean he liked it.

"Indeed I do," Charles agreed. "Come see me tonight, these two require your special touch." Raven nodded. Charles wheelchair whirred to life as the bald mutant began to wheel himself out of the library.

"In house or out of town?" Raven questioned, Xavier stopped rocking slightly in his wheelchair.

"One of each. One will need to be done tonight the other I will let you think over, the man who requested it, while and old friend, is not someone who would ask this lightly." The aging man threw over his shoulder as he wheeled the rest of the way out of the library. Raven nodded and made a mental note to check his weapons and equipment when he got back tonight, he got the feeling he was going to need them.

**XXX**

Raven yawned, it was only second period but he could already tell it was going to be a shitty day. Oh Raven liked his subjects well enough, in addition to the normal classes he was also taking Chemistry, Computer Science, Physics, Advanced Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering. It was the people he had a problem with, Raven swore that if he had to deal with another person complaining about something, it didn't matter what, he was going to do something drastic to them. The green eyed mutant was broken out of his thoughts of possible impending homicide when his phone went off.

"Young man, there's no need to feel down. I said Young man, pick yourself off the ground. I said Young man, cause you're in a new town, there's no need to be unhappy! Young man, there's a place you can go. I said, Young man, when you're short on your dough, you can stay there and I'm sure you will find many way's to have a good time! It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A! It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A! They have everything that you're meant to enjoy! You can hang out with all the boy's! It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A! It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A!" Raven smiled as he let the theme play, ignoring all the incredulous looks he got from the people around him, he loved this song and always let it play to the chorus whenever someone called him. The black haired teen grabbed the phone out and looked at the caller, Charles Xavier, that was strange, the professor usually didn't call him, especially at school, this was probably important. He almost felt bad about letting the song play to the chorus, almost.

"Xavier?" Raven question as he placed the phone to his ear, a long suffering sigh met his hearing first.

"I should have never let you put that as your ringtone." Charles told him sounding annoyed, it looked like this was really, really, important.

"As much as I love listening to my ringtone, the reason for your call is?" Raven questioned, another long suffering sigh met his hearing. The black haired green eyed mutant smiled, ah, sometimes he loved what he did with a passion.

"Cerebro picked up a mutant in Northbrook, I want you and Jean to meet her with me." Xavier told him, Raven sighed.

"Okay Jean I can understand but why do you want me?" Raven questioned, he thought it was a perfectly valid question. He didn't always play nice with humans after all.

"In case things go wrong and more importantly if the mutant we detected doubts we have powers you could make a small demonstration. Jean or I could do that as well but I don't want to go into her mind if I can avoid it, it is a very bad way to make an impression, plus as I said if things go wrong I want you there." Raven sighed as the calming voice of Professor X came out of the mobile.

"Got it, do I need to find Jean or will you handle that?" Raven asked walking towards his locker and spinning the dial before placing his bag inside and taking out his keys.

"I've already called her, Jean will be waiting near your car." Xavier informed him, Raven nodded to himself as he stalked down the halls of Bayville High School phone to his ear.

"Understood," The green eyed mutant replied before hanging up the phone as he exited the building and walking towards his car, seeing the familiar red haired figure next to it Raven hit the immobiliser and opened the doors. Jean looked over at him and smiled, Raven waved back and sped up slightly as Jean slipped into the car. The green eyed mutant sat down in the drivers seat as the red head looked at him with a mixture of exasperation and fondness.

"When are you going to let me drive this thing anyway?" Jean questioned a small smile on her face as they pulled out of the car park and out onto the road.

"Sometime between now and never I'm sure." Raven shot back causing the red head to laugh and the black haired mutant to gain a small smile as he turned the corner onto the main road.

"And you said Laura was overly attached to her shotgun, she's got nothing on you and this car." Jean told him chortling, Raven shrugged but didn't respond. She did have a point, he mused as the car went around a corner smoothly. "Anyway, you get the name of the mutant we're going to see?" Jean asked curiously, Raven shook his head.

"No, I know about the same amount as you do. Other than the fact that the mutant is in Northbrook I have no idea about anything else about them." The green eyed mutant told his friend as he admired the scenery of the coast road he was taking back to the institute, he would have to learn how to surf one day. They were in a nice location for it, not prime, but nice. The institute could be seen up ahead slowly coming closer. Raven looked around for any sign of the police before flooring his accelerator.

"Wha-!" Jean exclaimed as the two raced towards the front gates in the Rx-7. They made it through when the gates had barely opened wide enough to admit them before coming to a nice smooth stop in Raven's parking bay. Jean rounded on him, "You're insane!" She snapped, Raven just laughed it off until the Telepathic red head chose to change her tactics. "What if you'd scratched the paint!" Jean demanded, Raven's laughter died like it had never been there at all, the teenager went slightly green in the face. Jean had a good point, he would need to keep that in mind the next time he was reckless in his car.

"Duly noted ma'am!" Raven told her while snapping to attention causing the red head to sigh.

"Ah there you are," The calming voice of Charles Xavier echoed over the com system. "Get to the black bird we are going to go take a little field trip." The professor finished, Raven could almost hear the smile in the man's voice.

**XXX**

Raven sighed as he sat in the back of the Jet, Xavier was driving and Jean was in the co-pilots seat. Not that she was actually doing anything, she just of a much better view from the co-pilots seat. Actually that raised a damn good question now that he thought about it, where the hell did Xavier get the money for all these sweet toy's anyway? Raven knew that the Professor got some of it from the jobs that he and Laura took, but that didn't cover all of it by a long shot. The black haired wind manipulator considered it for a second before shelving that train of thought, he probably didn't want to know.

"So why just the two of us and not the rest?" Jean asked looking over at Charles as he flew the Black Bird to their destination.

"You, Jean, will be able to connect with the girl easiest and as for Raven his powers may be the best we have to show that we can teach the girl, Katherine Pryde, or Kitty as she prefers to be called, control. Which is something I am sure that her parents will want her to learn, my own powers would be to invasive for such a demonstration and your own do sometimes go out of control Jean and I do not wish to take such a risk when talking to a prospective student. In all honesty I would normally have Ororo come with me rather than Raven but she is out doing some business for me that can't afford to be put off." Xavier took in a deep breath.

"But not only that Jean, you are a model student of what we're offering them." Charles chuckled, "No pressure," The aging professor joked.

"And to think I passed up a nice relaxing Biology test for this," Jean muttered, Raven yawned.

"What about the other kid that Cerebro found, the one in the foster home?" The green eyed mutant inquired. Charles forehead wrinkled as he thought before sighing.

"Leave him to me, you and Jean just need to focus on Kitty's parents. Besides the child does have a history of aggressive behaviour and there is the chance that he might attack you if you went near him and displayed your powers." Xavier advised, Raven snorted a small distortion of air playing above his right index finger.

"He'd be cut apart before he could try anything." The wind manipulator stated confidently admiring the distortion he had made, the wheelchair bound Professor X sighed.

"And that attitude is precisely the reason that you will not be meeting with Mr. Alvers if it can be helped," Charles told the black haired mutant sternly, Raven just smirked and held up his hands in mock surrender.

**XXX**

The drive to meet with Kitty Pryde had been short and had been quite nice too. Raven could honestly say he enjoyed the drive, the scenery was quite nice. After they arrived however everything had gone straight to hell. Her parents were very defencive, not that Raven was surprised, after all when your daughter suddenly displays extraordinary abilities how else do you respond to it? Xavier had done his usual spiel, telling them about how they found out that someone with unique gifts had been felt around the area, that was when the parents of Katherine Pryde started to freak out.

"Wh-who are you how do you know Kitty?" The woman, who Raven assumed was Kitty's mother, asked. She looked to be somewhere in her mid to late thirties, blond hair and a maroon business suit. Obviously considering what had happened to the family earlier that day the woman had decided not to go into work, Raven didn't blame her.

"May we come in for a moment we will answer all your questions-" Jean started, Raven held in a sigh she was speaking a bit fast, and perhaps more importantly, it was making her seem like nothing that they said could be discussed outdoors. That was not a good thing, especially when they were trying to get these people to trust them, still he supposed that the earnest look on her face may have made up for that. Raven himself was just hanging back in case he was needed, he wouldn't need to make a lot of noise unless something went horribly, horribly, wrong.

"I'm sorry Miss," The older looking man next to the woman interrupted. "If you have anything to tell us you can tell us out here." The man stressed the word out heavily, they really didn't want them inside. If the woman was in her mid to late thirties then the man was in his early forties. Salt and pepper hair, thought it leaned closer to pepper than salt, a greying beard and brown eyes. His shirt was green and his pants brown, Raven noted that the man was fairly well built and was wearing sturdy work boots. Xavier sighed, Raven could understand why, outside really wasn't the place for this particular talk.

"Very well," the wheelchair bound Professor replied nodding his head. "As I think you know Kitty is going through a very unique transition and we would simply like to help her through it." Charles told the two parents, "why don't you tell us about last night." Raven winced as the man called professor X finished his statement. He saw the way the two adults in front of them had reacted to his statement, they had grown very guarded and suspicious, that had been the wrong thing to say.

Not that he blamed Charles for saying it, it did need to be brought up but it seemed that her parents weren't quite ready to deal with it just yet, they were unsure and scared, probably trying to find ways to stop it happening again or trying to pretend it never happened, humans could go to incredible lengths to ignore or suppress what they didn't understand or didn't want to face.

That being said, they did need to face it, to do otherwise would be at best an accident waiting to happen and at worst...Raven didn't want to think about it. But it would probably land somewhere in the area of catastrophic. The green shirted man leaned forward, a small distortion appeared around Raven's left hand, if it turned violent he would just knock them out.

"Last night is none of your business." He stated, before pulling back and taking a deep calming breath and holding up his hands in a surrender like fashion. "Please just leave us alone." He finished, there was a more than slight amount of desperation in the man's tone. Raven looked down at the professor as the man began to close the door, Xavier shook his head. The block of wind that he had been preparing to stop the door with faded as the door was shut, hard. Jean sighed looking at the house with an annoyed expression.

"Next time why don't we just call and get hung-up on," She spat out. "It would be faster, not to mention we wouldn't have to pay for more jet fuel." It was easy to tell that she was annoyed, she often was when parents knew there was something different about their child but refused to see it, or they tried not to. Raven knew as a fact that she still hadn't worked up the courage to tell her own family about her 'condition' and it wore on her.

Mutants were still, relatively, unknown. Yes there were story's about them but for the most part people dismissed them as fiction, and truth be told Raven preferred it that way. The black haired mutant could already see a lot of hate crimes coming when mutants finally revealed themselves to the world. That being said at least if mutants were more well known perhaps people would be more inclined to allow Xavier to help them. Everything at a cost.

"You'll need to make contact with Kitty directly, at her school." Xavier informed the red head mutant, Jean sighed and walked back to the car. Raven picked up the professor, wheelchair and all, and carried him down the steps of the Pryde home. "Raven while Jean is talking to Kitty I want you to review the file that is in the glove compartment." Raven just nodded, he already knew what would be in that file, a target and a location. A warm smile caressed the mercenary turned students face, there were times when he really enjoyed his job. Raven got the feeling that this would be one of those times.

**XXX**

Jean sighed as she walked onto the oval of the high school, the red haired Telepath knew that her job was important. But there were times when she wished she could wait in the car like Raven did. Granted the reason he could do that was the fact that he would probably throw a wind blade at Lance Alvers if the other mutant annoyed him. That being said, at least Raven wouldn't have to hold what would likely be a very annoying, not to mention very personal, conversation on a school campus, life just wasn't fair at times.

She had already seen the girl, Katherine "Kitty" Pryde, once already. She was definitely not a plain looking girl, but the fact that she had a tan track suit on really did take away from how attractive she was. Kitty had been practising with, what Jean assumed was, the track and field club. The girl looked to be quite the athlete, even when she was obviously having an off day. When some of the girls around Kitty made fun of her the ground shook as if hit by a localised earthquake, causing the girl to fall, the red head turned her head to one of the nearby buildings she could clearly see figures on the closest one.

That hadn't been 'like' a localised earthquake, that had been a localised earthquake. Jean took closer note of the people on the roof, all three looked like hoodlums but it was the one in the centre that really took her attention. Brown hair, check, brown eyes, check, ratty clothes, double check. Lance Alvers, Jean filed the information away for future reference, knowing the teens powers and how to counter them would be important if push came to shove, and knowing their luck it would.

Jean sighed and walked after the distressed girl, who had run away after the minor seismic event. If she had to guess Jean would put money on the fact that seeing another mutant at work right now was probably freaking Kitty out even more, oh this was going to make that conversation so much easier. She really hated the jobs she was given at times.

The Telekinetic mutant sighed as she walked into, what she assumed was, the schools drama wing. Moving immediately to the shadows to better watch her quarry, once upon a time she just would have walked up to the girl and talked, she no longer did that. Mostly because of Raven and Laura drilling into her the fact it could be a trap, those two were way to paranoid for their own good. Not that she could talk any more, Jean mused, she was just as bad. There paranoia was damn close to infectious, it was actually kind of scary.

Jean walked closer clothed inside the shifting shadows of the drama room, blending into them like a natural while watching her quarry talk to herself. Most people thought that talking to yourself was the first sign of madness, Jean personally doubted that. She had always thought that talking to yourself was more about the person trying to convince themselves that what they were thinking wasn't as ridiculous as it sounded.

Considering the borderline hysterical voice Kitty was talking in, she probably wasn't having much luck. She was currently looking at a, fake, African mask like it held all the answers of the universe and slowly but surely Kitty was beginning to look more and more panicked. Jean sighed as she walked out of the shadows, time to put an end to this before the girl had a panic attack. That would really complicate matters and give Jean one hell of a headache, she would like to avoid that.

"Kitty, are you okay?" Jean asked, knowing full well that the girl was in no way okay. But the red head hoped that the question would make it easier to open up dialogue with the girl. Kitty's head snapped towards her, the girls mouth set in a frown and her eyes narrowed as if she was annoyed at seeing Jean, it was a remarkably well made facade, the Telekinetic mutant wondered how long Kitty had spent perfecting that look.

The only thing that gave her away was her eyes, and the fact that the girl was on the edge of hyperventilating. Kitty was scared, understandably scared, but very scared none the less, she was going to be skittish and hard to deal with in this state. Jean personally thought that there was a good chance that the girl may just up and run away if she approached this the wrong way.

"That Ra-Ra-Riley a friend of yours?" Kitty asked sarcastically, Jean had to hold in a sigh. Dammit another sarcastic person like Raven and Laura, what god had she offend to get not one, not two, but three people like that!? "Because I had nothing to do with what happened out there on the track." The girl stated defensively, yep this conversation was going about the same way Jean pictured it, give or take another five minutes and the girl would probably run away too. She hated being a know it all, it got very depressing at times.

"I know you had nothing to do with that." Jean stated, before smiling. "And do I look like a friend of Riley's to you?" Jean asked sarcastically, causing Kitty to smile slightly. Oh God now she was doing it as well, it was infectious damn it! "Hell no! I'm no friend to that Riley, I prefer people who actually have brains and can think, you know what I mean!" Jean finished in a mock huff, Kitty chuckled a little, Jean smiled, progress.

"Sorry, but you do look like you'd be her friend." Kitty replied, retreating back into her shell. Jean had to hold in a sigh, one step forward, two steps back. Jean gestured to the mask in Kitty's hand, the girl was gripping the fake African mask so hard that her knuckles had gone white.

"No need for apologies," Jean assured the younger girl. "And no need for masks as well, you aren't going to believe me but I do actually know what you're going through." Jean assured the younger girl, that had been the wrong thing to say. Kitty's face went red, that was definitely anger.

"DON'T LIE TO ME! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!" The frightened and angry girl yelled out, Jean held in a laugh. A little bundle of spirit and fire that only knew how to talk big, young and clumsy, she liked fools like that. The red head stopped for a second, was that the same kind of thought that Raven had the first time he met her? She had called both him and Laura out and when told they were similar she tried to prove him wrong, he, who at that point in time, could have crushed her like an ant if he wanted.

Was that what he had seen when he first looked at her, what he and Laura had both seen? A foolish and clumsy little girl that had no idea how vast the world really was but had a fire that they couldn't help but like? Jean put the thoughts aside, there would be time to reflect on them later, though she doubted she would ever really get an answer. Moreover Jean wasn't sure she wanted one.

"YOU AND THAT GUY OUT THERE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!" Kitty yelled, Jean just allowed the girl to let it all out. People usually reacted better after they had let everything out like that, Kitty drew in a deep breath breathing in deeply.

"Feel any better?" Jean asked, Kitty nodded nervously. "I don't know who that guy is, but I can guess. Kitty this is not about me, or about him. This is about you and your new gift." Jean stated firmly, causing the girl to look at her like she was crazy.

"I don't have a gift." Kitty stated sullenly looking at her hands, which she suddenly found to be incredibly interesting. "Only a curse," The girl finished bitterly.

"I suppose it could be considered a curse, but only if you let it be. I want to help you understand it, and in time harness it." Jean told her brown haired counterpart, anger made a return to Kitty's features, Jean held in another sigh of exasperation and fondness. Despite everything the girl was starting to grow on her.

"HELP ME UNDERSTAND IT! I DON'T WANT IT!" Kitty spat out venomously, "IT'S HARD ENOUGH JUST BEING NORMAL!" Jean smiled as the girl wound down, and rolled her shoulders.

"Kitty I want you to watch me for a second." Jean told her calmly, the girl looked up. This wasn't the best idea but unless the girl felt like they could connect with each other she would never get anywhere with her, so Jean chose to take a gamble. The red head flicked her finger up and the fake African mask genitally pulled itself free of Kitty's hold who looked at the mask like it was, simultaneously, the most incredible and strange thing she had ever seen. Jean decided that was probably possible as she manipulated the mask back onto its hanger on the wall.

"How did you do that?" Kitty asked, Jean smiled at her. Her vision over lapped with a younger version of herself who was pestering Raven with questions about how he had made all the things she had made float come back down to earth and when he would teach her how.

"The same way you can phase through objects." Jean told her, her voice calm and serene, hopefully making Kitty calmer and more receptive. Raven and the Professor had gone over with her how important tone was when talking to others and what tones normally provoked what reactions. It was actually quite scary how much both of them knew about how words and the tone they were said in could affect people, it was like they could manipulate people without the use of their powers. Now that Jean thought about it, they probably could, now there was a scary thought.

"Just like you one morning I woke up and I had this power," She told the girl, her voice still calm. "And trust me I hated it to." Jean added in a sheepishly causing Kitty to give a very small chuckle. "I actually tried to stop myself from using it most of the time," Jean gave a dry laugh. "But it would still come out every now and then because I had no idea how to control it." Kitty took notice when Jean's eyes glazed over as if seeing something far in the distance that she couldn't. "Then one day when I was going home from a friends house I decided to take a short cut down an ally." Kitty listened on entrapped as the older teen spun her tail.

"That was a mistake, a group of morons had decided to use the ally to hangout in. They were small time crooks mostly, purse snatchers and petty thieves, with one or two being car thieves and since the small twelve year old girl had wondered into their territory they decided that I might as well give them all my valuables." Jean continued, Kitty couldn't hold it in any more and spoke up.

"They didn't actually take anything did they?" The girl asked sounding concerned, Jean gave a sheepish laugh as she rubbed her hands together.

"No they didn't, I beat them black and blue with my powers." She admitted getting a laugh from Kitty. "I couldn't control them, not really, but once I'd dealt with the morons I could feel one other close by. So I called them out on it, you see Kitty I have two abilities, Telekinesis, which you have already seen and Telepathy. Which lets me feel and go inside the mind of others." Jean held her hand up as Kitty looked to be getting ready to yell at her.

"You don't need to worry I have not been inside or even touched your mind. At the time however I couldn't control my gift and read everyone around me whether I wanted to or not. That was what let me pick up on someone else being around me. However I only felt one person." Jean smiled remembering the sheer surprise she had felt when Raven had dropped from the roof tops when she could only feel Laura.

"So imagine my surprise when two people appeared before me, one from the far side of the ally and the other jumped off the roof next to me, I could only sense the one in the ally. That was when I found out they both had gifts, the one I couldn't sense offered to teach me how to use my gifts and get my Telepathy under control, I agreed, and learned from him for six months before I was found by a man named Professor Charles Xavier. The Professor offered me a place in his academy where he offered to teach me even more about my powers and how to control them. Naturally I didn't want to leave my teachers turned friends behind, so I went to see them and they agreed to come with me." Jean finished taking a deep breath and saw Kitty was still engrossed in her story.

"That is what we're offering you Kitty, a place to learn how to turn that curse into a gift with people who also have gifts." Jean finished, Kitty still looked unsure.

"How do I know it's all not just a big joke? That your not just reading my thoughts and making me want to trust you." Kitty asked defensively, Jean put her hand inside her pants and pulled out a small pad and a pen and quickly wrote down three numbers.

"The first number is mine." Jean told the younger girl before moving to the second number. "The second one is for the person who taught me how to control my powers originally. He's a little, eccentric, but he will be able to confirm what I have just told you, just tell him your name and that I asked you to call and he shouldn't have a problem talking to you." Jean continued smiling, though eccentric was putting it lightly. "Just don't call him before eleven if your calling on a weekend or you'll be lucky if all he does in hang up on you." Jean advised quickly, no point in having Kitty talk to an annoyed Raven if it could be avoided.

The red haired Telepath pointed to the third name. "The last number is for Professor Charles Xavier who took me and my teachers in and taught us how to harness our powers far more than we could before. If you really think I am influencing your thoughts then give it a little while and if your still interested then call one of those numbers and whoever answers should be able to answer any questions you may have. But if you want to meet face to face we will be in town for the next few days." Jean finished, still smiling. Kitty took the note and placed it in her pocket before giving Jean a shaky smile.

"Thanks but I should go now." The girl stated before walking back stage and leaving, Jean relaxed until a hand was felt on her shoulder and spun her around to see an angry looking Lance Alvers. It took all of Jean's will not to punch the man who had surprised her.

"Word of advice Red," Alvers hissed out. "I'm the only friend that girl is going to need and I'll be teaching her what's, what. So you just back yourself off." Alvers finished and stalked out of the drama room after Kitty, Jean acted in no way that would have made Raven proud. She certainly did not hit the boy or give him a concussion for his rude words or actions. Jean acted as the model student of the Xavier institute in a way that would have made Charles himself proud if he could have seen it. She had no idea how the fruit bowl had floated off the table and slammed Lance over the back of the head when he exited the room, no idea at all.

Back outside the high school, waiting in the car, Raven felt an odd surge of pride for for his student.

**XXX**

The black haired green eyed mutant sighed as he saw Kitty's parents run up to them, Jean and he were still in normal clothes. No point in drawing extra attention to themselves if they could avoid it, which is exactly what wearing there battle attire in the middle of a school would have done. Even if said school was closed.

"Where is Kitty?" Her mother asked, she sounded very, very, concerned.

"She just broke into the teachers office." Raven replied bluntly, ignoring the reproachful looks he got from Jean and Xavier. He was not about to sugar coat this for people, not when telling them the simple facts would make this go so much faster.

"I don't understand," Her mother replied sounding confused. "She's never done anything like this before."

"I understand," Raven replied causing both parents to look at him with confused expressions. The black haired wind manipulator shrugged. "It's not that hard to understand, she just found out she had powers. Lance, who she knows has powers, and is more familiar than Jean, has told her that he can help her control them. She agrees, so Lance sets a test." Raven continued in his best Sherlock Holmes voice, it seemed to be working to as the others were listening intently.

"The test is simple phase through a wall and open the door to let him in. Showing him that she could do it. Lance picks the teachers office, she phases through thinking about how good it is to get control over her ability and acknowledgement form someone she knows. Kitty lets Lance in, he steals the test answers and then they leave, whether or not Kitty knew about the test answers is debatable but that's probably the general gist of it." Raven finished before looking at the people around him strangely, "Why do you all look so shocked?" He inquired, Jean was the one to respond.

"It's just it fits so well, kind of like you knew it was going to happen." She told him, Raven shrugged again.

"I kind of did," Raven admitted. "Not like it's hard to figure out. Lance is close to failing most of his classes if what Charles found out is right. Then a phaser lands in his lap, doesn't take a genius to put two and two together."

"Be that as it may," the wheelchair bound Professor X cut in, effectively silencing another round of Q and A. "We need to stop them, Raven, Jean go find them." The two mutants ran off, Kitty's parents behind them. Raven cursing the fact he hadn't checked out the school when he'd had the chance, being able to teleport into the room would be so damn handy right now.

"I've changed my mind, I want to leave!" The voice of Kitty Pryde echoed down the empty hall. Her father raced past the two mutants and threw open the door, the man looked angry and even intimidating, how he managed that in a lime green shirt Raven would never know.

"Unhand my daughter!" The man demanded, Lance just gave the man a look of disdain and held out his hand. The room stated shaking as the brown haired teen exerted his mutation.

"That's far enough old man," Lance replied, his seismic waves toppling a near by bookcase and having it almost hit Kitty's father. Though it was only almost as when the bookcase and books began to fall they were picked up and thrown to the other side of the room by a surge of wind. Everyone in the room stopped as the looked at the spot the two bookcases had impacted the wall, Raven walked forward yawning.

"Now why don't we talk this out like adults." The wind manipulator suggested spreading his arms in a gesture of peace. "No need for anyone to be hurt, but first would you be so kind as to unhand the young lady Mr. Alvers?" Raven asked politely, he saw the other teens grip tighten and sighed, why did everyone always want to do things the hard way?

"No, we're in control now! We don't need you! We don't need anyone!" Lance yelled at the black haired mutant as the room began shaking again.

"Lance! Let me go!" Kitty demanded, the brown haired teen ignored her.

"Kitty!" Her father yelled out. "I pushed you to this, I know it. I wanted to pretend like nothing was wrong but I was only fooling myself. I'm not perfect Kitty, but I'm learning. Just like you are, please come back home so we can work this out together!" Her father pleaded, Kitty struggled harder to get away from Lance as the room shook more violently.

"LET ME GO!" The brown haired young woman screamed at the teenager holding her.

"Forget them!" Lance snapped back. "I'm brining this place down!" He declared, a child like glee entering his tone. Raven supposed that it was kind of funny, the guy was living out every child's dream, destroy their own school, the green eyed mutant sighed and looked at Jean, the red head just made a waving motion in Lance's direction, this was going to be fun! Well it would be for him at least. The black haired wind manipulator walked forward.

"Kitty!" Jean yelled out, "You called your gift a curse, if you go with him I guarantee you it will be!" The red head told her younger counterpart earnestly, determination entered the eyes of Kitty Pryde as her powers activated and she phased through Lance's hand. A flash of red entered the vision of everyone in the room and Lance's head snapped back as a kick connected solidly with his chin. Raven just smiled as Kitty ran past him to her parents and Jean before turning a bloodthirsty smirk on Lance.

"Hello Mr. Alvers,' The black haired teen said jovially another flash of red taking him next to the teen as he punched the brown haired young man in his stomach, hard. "You can call me Raven, I'll be administering your ass kicking today." The shaking of the room grew worse, Raven ignored it as he nailed Lance with a hard left hook to the body causing him to double over. The uppercut that he landed on the other boy's chin snapped his head back, Raven smiled to himself as he reached up to grab the back of Lance's head and give him a knee to the face.

The shaking of the room grew worse, Raven let Lance go and jumped back leaving the dazed teen in the centre of the room and looked up. The ceiling was filled with cracks, the brown haired teen recovered enough of his faculties to run as the ceiling came down, Raven evacuated outside with a quick flash of red light just in time to see the theatre of the arts building come down. The green eyed mutant whistled, well that was impressive. Xavier came up next to him, looking grave.

"Are they still inside?" The black haired mutant asked, the wheelchair bound Professor X nodded.

"Indeed though I can still feel Jean, Kitty and Mr and Miss Pryde inside so they are alive. More importantly, from what I can sense they are also in good health and no danger." Xavier informed the green eyed mutant, Raven snorted.

"Of course Jean's alive," He stated confidently. "No student of mine would be killed by something as minor as a collapsing building." Raven looked over the wreckage again. "Want me to lift what I can?" The black haired mutant asked, Charles shook his head.

"No they should be out right about, now." Just as the Professor finished his sentence the group of four phased out of the collapsed building.

"Remind me to never worry about a building collapsing on a phaser." Raven stated, before continuing in a lower voice that only Charles could hear. "In fact if we ever go up against a phaser remind me that bringing down the building on them won't kill them." He added, the Professor gave an almost unnoticeable nod.

"See it is a gift Kitty." The Professor stated confidently, getting a grin and a laugh from the young woman. "And you have used it well," Xavier continued in his kind grandfatherly voice, making the young woman blush in embarrassment. Kitty turned to her parents.

"Mom I'm so sorry." She said hugging the blond haired woman before turning to her father. "And Daddy, these people they want to help me, I trust them." The salt and pepper haired man looked down at the brown haired teenager and smiled.

"So do I," He said sincerely before looking at Charles. "Mr. Xavier my apologies for being so rude earlier today, but may I still take you up on that offer of a talk?" Mr Pryde inquired, Charles nodded and smiled back at the man.

"Of course you may," The Professor said smiling, Kitty turned to Jean.

"So if that's the guy who runs this school where you learned how to use your powers now, where's the guy that first taught you?" She asked excitedly, Jean smiled and pointed to Raven. "Really?" Kitty asked, "You were taught by Mr. Tall, Dark and Punchy?" She inquired, Jean chuckled at the reference of what Raven did to Lance and nodded again before leaning down and putting her mouth to Kitty's ear.

"Don't let the fact he looks cute fool you, the man is a demon when it comes to combat instruction." The two girls shared a laugh and Raven held in a sigh, sometimes he felt so under appreciated.

**XXX**

Raven yawned as he walked through the empty parking lot, Colt 1911 safely in it's shoulder holster. The In House contract was on a Tomas Johnson, a small time Mixed Martial Artist. That fought some small time cage fights and big time underground fights. The guys rap sheet was the size of his leg but the police couldn't arrest him due to the fact that a lot of Politicians like to see the guy fight and stopped any investigation that wasn't completely solid.

The guys newest fetish was killing people with his bare hands with his Martial Arts. The cops might not be able to make the charges stick as they were all circumstantial but some of the families knew that he did it and they were willing to pay good money to have the guy killed. Raven wasn't complaining, he loved money. The green eyed mutant was working this job alone, he didn't need back up for this and it left Laura free to work another job on the other side of the city, they would meet at Ihop after they were both done for celebratory pancakes.

He saw the man come out of the elevator to the car park, Raven walked towards the man and smiled. He didn't bother to say anything, his hand just whipped into his jacket and pulled out the gun, the crack of gunfire echoed in the empty parking lot. Raven yawned again as he walked out of the building while whistling ACDC's Money Talks, he didn't think about who would find the body he had more pressing matters to attend to, like the kind of pancakes he would be having, tonight he was thinking blueberry.

**Chapter Four- End**


	5. Chapter 5

**Weapons: Origin **

**Chapter Five: Outside of Time**

**Authors Note-**

Good morning everybody! (It's 2 am here, sue me)

Welcome back to another chapter of Weapons: Origin, and please welcome plot device number one- Doctor Stephen Strange!

No seriously, to address a few questions before they're asked, Strange will not have an overly active roll in this story. He will appear occasionally to put a new storyline into motion or to offer advice and occasionally to give cryptic hints about the future but he will not play a major roll though he will have a, probably small, supporting one. Also I've never actually read anything, with the exception of Rise of Arcane, that actually featured Strange so his character is probably somewhat out, just letting you know.

Other than that in the next chapter Harry/Raven will meet a member of S.H.I.E.L.D I haven't quite decided if it's going to be Natasha Romanoff or Clint Barton yet though I do lean more towards the former. Mainly because I am a guy and she is hot, in addition to the fact that she kicks ass. That being said I am not completely decided just yet.

Also yes, this is partly a ploy on my part just to get other Marvel characters involved but also because I want to throw Harry head first into some of the other Marvel movies at some point or another. Having him already know some people in S.H.I.E.L.D gives me an excuse to throw him into the Avengers Movie when I want to, that won't be happening for awhile though.

In addition to all of this, at the end of this story arc Harry/Raven will finally learn his real name and be on the way to discovering who he really is. Which is probably a relief to some of you who have probably been going, 'hurry the fuck up' at me in your heads. Okay I think that's everything, oh right almost forgot. Kudos to anyone who managed to make the link between me calling this arc Death Mask's and the Dresden Files series, you were correct, Harry Potter/Raven will be working with the only professional Wizard in Chicago area, Harry Dresden.

Okay that should be everything, please enjoy!

**Story Start- **

Raven yawned, got the feeling like he had been doing that a lot lately, as he and Laura walked the halls of the X-mansion. His job had only just been finished and, more importantly, those pancakes had been delicious! The Canadian mutant seemed to be fine with walking in silence so Raven didn't bother to make small talk with her. Neither was really the quiet type but they both had their moments.

The two mutants approached the study of Charles Xavier, the Professor always stayed up to greet them when they got back. Only this time they knew he would not be alone, the person who wanted the Out of Town job would also be there to tell them the specifics of that particular job and whether or not they wanted to take it.

The mansion was quiet at this time of night, not that either mutant found that surprising. It was eleven thirty at night after all, normally that wouldn't really be a time that most teenagers were asleep. But when one factored in the fitness sessions, danger room sessions and the power control training it was easy to see why everyone preferred to be in bed and snoozing before twelve at night, unless they had something like homework that couldn't be put off.

At least it meant that nine times out of ten no one else was awake to see the two of them come back and ask uncomfortable questions, granted they could lie their way out of it easy enough but neither really wanted to put in the extra effort after a job.

The two grew close to the study, they could hear voices inside talking in low tones. That would be Charles and their client, Raven threw a quick look at his partner, Laura shook her head she couldn't tell what they were thinking about either. That was strange, her enhanced senses should have made knowing what was being said on the other side of the door easy, was their client a mutant with some kind of ability that manipulate sound?

Was that why Laura couldn't hear more than mutters? They did get jobs from mutants occasionally, but it was fairly rare. The green eyed teen shook his head and continued to the door knocking hard.

The old oak door swung open, Raven noted neither man inside the room had moved. It was almost like magic. Inside the study of Charles Xavier were two men, the first being the wheelchair bound Professor X who the two mutants were intimately familiar with. The other was the man who must be their client.

He looked to be in his forties but whether that was his late, mid or even early forties was anyone's guess. The man was quite tall, seeming imposing, though kind, even while sitting down. He had deep black hair, two wings of silver were prominent near his temples. A well made suit fit his, obviously well trained, body. His eyes were grey, not a colour nearing grey but actually grey. Still they retained a sense of warmth and joy that were mirrored in the eyes of Charles Xavier.

"Good evening children," The man said. His voice seemingly reverberating around the room, to Raven it was more like he had felt the words than actually heard them. "My name is Doctor Stephen Strange, and if you take the contract that I am about to offer you I will be your next employer." The man's voice was calm and rich, much in the same way that Raven found Charles Xavier's to be, but the green eyed mutant was still on guard. If the man could manipulate sound there was a chance that he could deliberately make his voice more pleasant in order to lull Laura and he into a false sense of security. Dr. Strange's face took on a slightly pained look as he saw the two teenagers become more guarded.

"Now, now, Laura, Raven, there is no need to be so guarded." Charles assured the two younger mutants. The rich tones of his own voice beginning to sooth away there worries that the stranger was manipulating his voice in order to manipulate them.

Charles smiled at his two students, "Stephen is a very old friend of mine and I can assure you that he is not using his voice to manipulate either of you. He is merely here to tell you of the other contract that I was sent earlier today. Please be aware you can choose not to get involved, in fact I would prefer it if you did not. But if you do I assure you that Stephen will be up front and honest with you." Xavier assured the two teenage mutants who relaxed again.

"Okay then, what's the job?" Laura asked, taking a seat in one of the arm chairs, an action mirrored by Raven. Dr. Strange seemed to fold in on himself for a second before speaking.

"The first thing you have to know is that I can only send one of you, not both." The older man held a hand out in order to forestall the tirade that was about to come out of both teens mouths. "I can't afford to upset the balance to much. Consider what I'm doing a chess game if you will, both I and my current opponent are bound by certain rules but we can still cheat. If I send both of you then there is a chance that the person I am working against will grow desperate and cheat." The black haired man sighed.

"I want to avoid that at all costs or else this can and will spiral very quickly out of control. Believe me we do not want that to happen." The man's rich voice echoed through the room, both Raven and Laura threw a quick look at Charles who nodded in agreement with what the man was saying.

"Before I go into the in depth explanation of what I need you to do, there a few things you need to know about me first. First and foremost, magic is real." The man stated calmly, the two teens just sat in silence. A snigger escaped from Laura, a small chuckle from Raven. Before both burst out laughing. The two teens actually held onto each other to avoid falling down, of all the things they had expected to hear that wasn't one of them.

Everything in this world had a scientific explanation, everything, even their mutations had a scientific explanation. Now this nut job was coming in here to convince them that magic of all things was real!? That was just too funny, the grey eyed man just looked at the two calmly as he waited for them to stop, Stephen Strange turned to the smiling Charles Xavier.

"You reacted exactly the same way." The aging man noted, the wheelchair bound Professor X gained a sheepish expression.

"Yes I suppose I did." Charles admitted, looking at the two teens who were only just now starting to get their laughter under control. It was times like this that Charles really found hope for those two, even if they had apathy towards humanity and could kill without mercy or hesitation they could still laugh like carefree children. It truly did give him hope for the two, the bald Professor turned his attention to his two students.

"Laura, Raven, please pay attention to Doctor Strange." the wheelchair bound Professor asked. "While I do admit that I originally had the same doubts as you when it came to magic Doctor Strange was able to show me that he spoke the truth so please keep an open mind." Raven just looked at Charles like he had lost his mind. Though he was still laughing so hard that tears were gathering in the corner of his eyes.

"Professor you can't actually believe in this magic mumbo jumbo can you? I mean every thing has a scientific explanation. Magic was just something made up by people hundreds of years ago to make themselves feel better about things they couldn't explain." Laura replied, while Raven finally managed to reign in his laughter completely, though the gigantic grin on his face told the entire room that he was a second away from starting again. Doctor Strange gave Xavier a flat look.

"They even say the same things as you did after you finished laughing as well." Strange took a deep breath before sighing. "Charles I'm beginning to think that these children may well be related to you considering the similarities that I can see between them now and the way you acted back then. I'm sure you can see it to, can you not old friend?" Xavier looked at the two and nodded before looking back at Stephen and waving his hand in encouragement to continue. The black and sliver haired Doctor sighed looking at the two before smiling slightly.

"Well considering you and they are so similar I guess I will have to prove it to them the same way I proved it to you." The good Doctor said, a smile gracing his aging face. The man waved one of his hands lazily, the appendage becoming covered in a golden light. The two teenage mercenaries were instantly on guard, Laura's claws silently extending while Raven collected the air around them into a barrier to stop what he thought could be an impending attack.

No attack came, the golden glow on the man's hand did nothing to either of the two mutants, it did do something to the floor though. A perfect circle a pentagram at its centre, the older man smiled and reached down pulling out a tub of yoghurt? Why the hell did he have yoghurt on him? And pulled off it's top, before cutting his own finger and placing the tub at the centre of the circle before stepping back and raising one hand.

Power suffused the air, that was the only thing that Raven could call it, power. It wasn't like the man was manipulating the air to press down on them, the black haired mutant knew he wasn't, but the air felt heavy all the same. His arms felt like led weights, his legs as if they had been bolted to the floor, for the first time in years the black haired mutant felt a cold weight settle into his stomach, he remembered this sensation, it was called fear.

"I summon thee, Landlini of the winter court, I call you Landlini of winter, I summon three Landlini of winter." The two teenage mercenaries watched the circle with expressions of disbelief plain on their faces. Surely nothing would happen, power or not, nothing would happen. Because magic didn't exist, it was just a figment of peoples imaginations, wasn't it?

There was the sound like the chiming of a bell, parts of the air cracked and froze, a creature appeared in the centre of the circle. It was humanoid, or to be more precise it had the form of a human female, that was where the similarities ended. It's eyes were pitch black with glowing blue slits, it's skin purple, hair cascading down its back the colour of an iron grey sea. On it's back were clear wings like ones found on a dragonfly, the figure was only two feet high. Raven's mouth went dry. What the hell was happening!?

The creature walked to the yoghurt and placed its fingers inside before scooping out some and taking a bite. Raven noted that the things teeth were pointed, it seemed to consider the people around it before taking another bite of the yoghurt and smiling.

"You always do provide such good food Stephen." The creature completed smiling wider at the man who looked forty something. Raven noted that it spoke in a cultured Oxford accent. It looked around the room again. "Now tell me is this for business or pleasure, I do seem to recall asking you to call for me if you ever wanted to have an intelligent conversation." The thing spoke again, Raven got the feeling it was just making small talk for the hell of it, this thing knew exactly what was going on around it.

"Just a demonstration Landlini," The Sorcerer assured the Fae, the purple being smiled at the two outside the circle. They had to hold in a shudder, the thing smiled wider. Raven got the feeling that it knew that they were wary of it, scared of it even.

"Oh unbelievers," Landlini said. Her voice was filled with mirth and held a slightly seductive edge. "It's been so long since I've been in the presence of someone who didn't really believe." The thing ran a hand across it's breasts, accenting the fact that it was wearing no bra. Or shirt for that matter. "Tell me mortal," It smiled, all of it's pointed teeth being put on display. The strawberry's in the yoghurt staining them red, giving them the look of being stained with blood.

"Would you like to make a deal?" It asked, seductively. Doctor Strange turned an unamused glare on the creature and waved his hand, a golden light enveloping the appendage. There was a sound like shattering glass and the creature was gone, the Doctor turned his attention to the two teenage mercenaries.

"Does that put your scepticism towards magic to rest?" The man asked, the two teens looked at each other for a second, seemingly holding a conversation with nothing but their eyes.

"To rest? No." Raven replied after a moment. "I will admit that you can do things that we've never seen before but still working on the whole believing it's magic thing. That being said we are willing to keep a more open mind on the subject that you want to talk to us about. It's not so much your abilities but rather the term 'magic' that we're having a bit of a problem with. It should not affect our ability to hear your proposal though." Raven finished, Strange looked at him for a second before nodding in acceptance.

"Very well then," The Sorcerer acknowledged. "Still they always did say that seeing is believing." He muttered.

"Got the seeing part down, still working on the believing." Laura admitted, Strange shook himself out of his train of thought and turned his attention back to the two teenagers.

"The job is quite simple, a mystical artefact that belongs to the church called the Shroud of Turin, supposedly it is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, has been stolen. The people who stole it are in Chicago, a man by the name of Harry Dresden is trying to get the Shroud back at this very moment. I wish for one of you to help him. The job is simple, help Dresden recover the artefact and see it safely back into the hands of the Church." Strange finished, Raven looked at Laura for a second the girl nodded slightly.

"Okay, what are we up against?" The black haired mutant asked, Strange grimaced.

"Just to take the Shroud you would be up against beings called Denarian's," Strange told the two gravely.

"Denarian's?" Raven questioned, he had never heard of a Denarian before, he supposed it could refer to a Roman Denarius but somehow he doubted that was the full story. Strange seemed to age just hearing the question.

"Yes, Denarian's, more specifically you would be going against the Knights of the Blackened Denarius. Humans who sold their souls to Fallen Angels in exchange for power. They may not have been extremely strong when they were human but being the host to a fallen angel gives them a limited form of immortality. Most have been around for at least a hundred years, you can be sure they've picked up a few tricks over that time." Strange finished looking at the two teenagers, who's mouths were now somewhere near the floor.

"Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait!" Laura yelled looking incredulously at the Doctor. "Your telling me Angels, honest to God halo wearing ANGELS exist!" The girl threw in a few hand movements just to emphasise her disbelief. Stephen Strange seemed to take a second to consider the question.

"Angels the beings of light and power that represent the forces of God?" The Sorcerer Suprime seemed to take a second to consider the question. "In a way I suppose they do," Strange admitted after a second. "At the very least beings that look like the Angels of the Bible and say they serve a creator God exist. As do Demons and beings called Fallen Angels that say they have fallen from the grace of their creator. The problem is that we can only take their word for it, other than that we have nothing else, so yes young one Angels like the ones from the Bible do exist. At least to the best of our knowledge they do." Strange finished, Raven nodded slowly but kept his guard up Strange wasn't telling them everything.

"Okay what can you tell us about the Blackened Order?" Raven asked, if Fallen Angels really did exist he wanted to know everything he could about them. Strange thought for a moment, looking into the fire place of the study where flames danced, before turning his attention back to the teenagers, Charles stayed silent.

"In essence the Knights of the Blackened Denarisus seek one thing. Armageddon, the end of the world, Ragnarök, call it what you will. They seek an end to all life, I believe that the theft of the Shroud is another attempt to start this event. It is one of the reasons that I want it found and put back with the Church. However I have other matters that need attending to and while this is a major problem it is not the greatest problem that the world currently faces. The larger problem is the one that will attract most of my attention and I will not have time to help in this endeavour. That is where one of you will come in." Strange took a deep breath and focused more intently on the two teenagers in front of him.

"As for individual abilities they will differ from Fallen to Fallen but you can always be sure of three things with them, the first is that they are cunning. They've had hundreds of years dealing with humans to perfect the art of deceiving others and manipulating people. In addition to that they have a Fallen Angel inside their heads that makes Hitler look like mother Teresa, do not under estimate them. The second is that every Denarian can shape shift into a more powerful form, the form itself is unique to each Fallen Angel but they can all shape shift. This form is meant for battle nothing else, if you see them in it do not attempt dialogue they are not interested in talking, kill them and be done with it." The aging man took a deep breath.

"Finally they are all incredibly skilled, they have had hundreds of years to hone their talents and the advice of a being as old as time to help them hone their abilities, do not underestimate them under any circumstances." Strange said sternly, before turning back to the fire. "That being said, though the Knights of the Blackened Denarius's overall purpose is creating Armageddon most only act for their own goals. They only stay with the organisation as it makes their goals easier to achieve. Very few are in the Knights due to a sense of personal loyalty. You may be able to use that to your advantage." Strange sighed and looked back to the two who were listening intently.

"Also I want both of you to remember one thing, the Fallen Angels are entrapped in thirty ancient silver coins, Roman Denarius to be exact. If you defeat one of the Denarians do not touch it's coin with your bare skin, it will give the Angel the ability to enter your mind and tempt you into using its power. Under no circumstance touch the coins with your bare skin." Strange impressed upon the two mutants who nodded.

"Is that everything one of us will be up against." Laura asked, both were still unsure about the whole magic thing, but even discounting that if even a single world that Strange had said was the truth this job was extremely dangerous. Strange shook his head.

"I doubt it," The Sorcerer admitted. "What ever enemies Dresden has made will probably try to impede you as well, though I couldn't tell you anything about those. Will you take the job?" The Sorcerer Supreme asked, the two mercenaries looked at each other, Raven opened his mouth.

"The pay is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars." Strange told the mercenaries and could almost see the dollar signs in their eyes. Stephen had to hold in a sigh, it seemed even in children human greed ran rampant. Raven looked at Laura for a second, holding a conversation with nothing but his eyes. The two turned back to Stephen.

"Which of us do you want?" The green eyed mutant asked. Strange thought about it for a second.

"You, Raven, will be the best choice." The Sorcerer said pointing at the boy who nodded.

"Are we the only people besides this Dresden on this job?" Raven asked, Stephen Strange shook his head.

"No, you are most definitely not. Dresden has his own circle of friends and associates that he will probably call on. More importantly a government organisation called S.H.I.E.L.D is becoming involved. You don't need to worry about using your abilities in front of their agent they already know about mutants and are, at the moment, non hostile towards them." Raven nodded stiffly, government agent, this was going to cause problems.

"Originally they wanted to send a whole strike team, I convinced them to only send one agent, I can't afford to have them upset the balance to much. You and Dresden will work with that agent, I do not know who it is but they should arrive in Chicago around the same time you do." Stephen finished, the two nodded.

"When do I start?" Raven asked, Stephen smiled, at least they were professional. Working with a government agent may cause them problems emotionally but Raven would not let it interfere with the job.

"I can have you in Chicago within in the next hour, I will open a way to a hotel room that has already been paid for. The receptionist can remember you checking in and asking not to be disturbed for the night, no need to worry about paying for the room either, that has already been handled." The Sorcerer took a deep breath in.

"Tomorrow morning head to Saint Mary's Cathedral at the centre of the city and ask for Father Forthill, tell him why you are there and he should be able to point you in the right direction." Strange said smiling, it was a calming expression.

"Wait how can you have me in Chicago in an hour?" The black haired mutant asked, he was still more than a little sceptical on the subject of magic, but he was very interested on how the magic user was going to get him into the city. More importantly how he was going to be accurate enough to get him inside the hotel room. Stephen smiled at the question.

"That is simple my young friend." The Sorcerer said, his teeth shining white as he grinned. "Just as you can teleport I can open a, gateway I suppose you could call it, between one place and another. That is how I will get you to Chicago." Stephen finished, Raven cocked his head to the side.

"But how would you go about making up the distance for the jump, my current limit no matter how much power I put into my teleporting is around six kilometres." Raven stated his eyes shinning as the black haired mutant was seemingly handed the gift of knowledge on a silver platter for his teleporting abilities.

"It's not like jumping that far wipes me out or anything I can keep doing six km jumps for awhile but I can't go any further no matter how much power I put into it." Raven clarified looking up at Stephen with stars in his eyes, the Sorcerer Supreme just laughed.

"Well my young friend, it's not all about power but also about control and experience." Strange told Raven, who was currently hanging on the man's every word like it was holy gospel. "To put it simply the more you practise the further you will be able to go, sorry my young friend, no short cuts." The other three occupants of the room had to hold in laughter at the dejected look on Raven's face, Charles chuckled before speaking up.

"Now I do believe you will probably need some equipment for this outing Raven, go get it now while Stephen sets up the gate way." Charles said smiling, the two teenage mercenaries nodded, Raven turned to Laura.

"Alright, I'll grab the stuff in my room, you mind getting my 'Toy Box?'" The black haired mutant asked his companion who nodded, looking giddy when he said toy box. The two walked out of the room wearing matching grins that promised pain, amongst other things, Stephen Strange turned to his old friend.

"Do I even want to know?" The Sorcerer Supreme asked, Charles thought about it for a second before shaking his head.

"Probably not," The wheelchair bound Professor told his old friend who nodded, Xavier's face took on a hard look "You didn't tell them everything," He accused, Strange nodded.

"No I didn't, trying to force a prophecy is difficult at best and cataclysmic at worst. I gave Raven what he needed to know to over come his challenge. I can not give him everything or do everything for him but I can give him a push in the right direction and some advice, other than that though it is unclear as to what I can do." Stephen admitted, Charles sighed and nodded.

"Very well then, what is this prophecy you speak of?" The wheelchair bound Professor asked, Strange seemed to fall in on himself.

"It is less a full prophecy and more a part of one. Even I do not know the entire prophecy but the fragment's that I do know I am sure refer to him. Of course whether the entire prophecy is based around him or if he is just a single player of many is still a mystery." Strange admitted before taking a deep breath.

"_The end fast approaches and the empty night has almost come."_

"_The Champion shall face the Master to decide the fate of worlds."_

"_The first key is found and the Goddess shall weep tears of bitter regret."_

"_The Fallen shall cry out and lament for her chosen, from her tears shall there come life."_

"_The She-Wolf howls to the heavens in despair."_

"_The Watcher drinks and raises her glass high under a rain of fire."_

_"The Phoenix plummets from the tower of red thunder where it falls no man shall see."_

"_Mighty Generals tremble under a Crimson sky."_

"_The Unsuppressed Soul lets oceans of blood."_

"That is everything I know thus far concerning this particular prophecy." Strange informed the wheelchair bound Professor as he leaned back into his chair. "I believe that the part of the Unsuppressed Soul refers directly to Raven the other parts however are definitely filled by others. Though I am sure that the overall prophecy relates to him directly as I stated earlier I am unsure if the other parts of the prophecy that we don't know refer to him or to others. That being said he is definitely the main player of this particular part." Charles Xavier nodded slowly, taking in the information.

"And will you be taking an active roll in this prophecy and it's fulfilment Stephen?" The wheelchair bound man asked, the Sorcerer shook his head.

"No, I will not, I may give the child advice or a push in the right direction from time to time but that will be the extent of my involvement. People who try to give themselves an active roll in a prophecy they are not part of normally meet sticky ends, I would like to avoid that." The Sorcerer confided in his old friend. Charles nodded gravely, while he personally knew little of magic he did know that the black haired man would not lead him wrong concerning it.

"When will you tell Raven of this prophecy?" Charles asked, Strange frowned at the question.

"Not for awhile yet." The Sorcerer Supreme said after a moment. "When most people hear about a prophecy featuring themselves they seem to think themselves invincible, at least until the prophecy is complete. When he is older and less likely to be reckless with the information I will tell him, in addition to that there is no hurry. The events that this prophecy speaks of are still years away from completion, we have at least some time." The grey eyed man grimaced.

"Though I do imagine that we will need to tell him in the next two or three years. We have more time than that, of that I am certain. However keeping this information for to long could be just as damaging as giving it out to early, we need to find a balance." Stephen finished, the wheelchair bound Professor opened his mouth to ask another question before closing it again and nodding.

There was the sound of footsteps coming down the hall, the two titans nodded to each other. They would continue this at a later time, right now getting Raven where he needed to be came first. The remainder of their discussion could wait. The door opened to admit the two teenagers, Raven himself was carrying a duffel bag and a suitcase, while Laura was carrying the 'Toy Box' a large black crate made of a mixture of hard plastic, and fibreglass. Strange looked at the box for a second before heading Charles warning and not asking what was inside.

The Sorcerer Supreme closed his eyes for a moment before muttering an incantation under his breath and waving his hand at one of the walls of the study, which seemed to shimmer for a moment and then dissolve into a swirling torrent of light and colour. Stephen looked at the gateway for a second before nodding to himself, seemingly satisfied with the work he had done.

"There is your way to Chicago my young employee," The Master of the Mystic Arts said with a smile. "Now is your time to say your goodbyes. To the best of my knowledge Dresden is on schedule and needs to retrieve the Shroud as fast as possible. I expect he has already started his investigation and you and the S.H.I.E.L.D agent will probably be dropping into the middle of it. Keep your wits about you and do not under any circumstances underestimate your opponents or I guarantee you, it will be the last thing you do." The Sorcerer finished a grim look on his face, Raven slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and turned to his black haired companion.

"See you soon!" The green eyed mutant stated cheerfully. Neither were ones for long drawn out goodbyes, Laura nodded giving her oldest friend a cheery wave.

"Bring me back a souvenirs!" Laura told him before thinking about it for a second. "Actually you better get one for Jean, Scott and Kitty as well." She added as an after thought, Raven nodded and turned back to the gateway. Picking up the suitcase and the 'Toy Box' in each hand he walked towards it before considering something and turning to Stephen.

"Wait how am I supposed to get back?" The mercenary asked, the Sorcerer smiled, he had been wondering when the boy was going to ask that.

"No need to worry about that," Stephen stated. "There's a rental car in the parking lot of the hotel your staying that needs to be returned three weeks from now at the latest to New York. Just drive it back, the paper work for it and the keys are already inside your hotel room. Also the S.H.I.E.L.D agent should be at Saint Mary's tomorrow at some point if you wish to meet them wait there." He stated cheerfully.

Raven just nodded and started wondering if the Sorcerer had just planned this out well or if he had somehow been manipulated into taking the job. Raven discarded the line of thought a second after starting it, for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars he could deal with being manipulated. The green eyed mutant walked into the gateway and the world vanished in a flash of colour.

It was the strangest experience Raven ever had the displeasure of feeling. He was being stretched, prodded, poked, it felt like his body was being forced through a tiny tube an organ at a time. But lacked the pain that such an act would be associated with. Nothing at all like his teleporting, all that one felt from that was like they were falling for a second before landing back on solid ground. Then as suddenly as it had started it stopped.

Raven's feet hit the floor of an unfamiliar room. The black haired child looked around. It was a simple room he could see that it was a combined eating, living and dining. He walked into the other room, a king single bed and a small bathroom with a shower and a toilet. Raven yawned and gave a quick stretch before giving each room a thorough sweep for bugs or other devices that could have been used to monitor him, he found nothing.

The green eyed mutant yawned and checked the front door, it was locked, that was good. He had already seen the keys for the door and the car on his night stand in the bedroom so he knew where those were. Raven yawned again and decided he'd been up long enough for one day and walked into the bed room, stowing his duffel bag, suitcase and 'Toy Box' next to his bed.

Raven calmly reached down into the duffel bag and pulled out one on of his Colt 1911's and placed it on the bedside table before turning off the light and jumping under the covers. He needed a good night's sleep, Raven could already feel that tomorrow was going to be a long day.

**XXX**

Raven's eyes snapped open and the green eyed mutant launched himself out of bed. The teens hand blurred grabbing the Colt off of the bedside table and flicking off the safety. Raven landed in a crouch, his breathing fast, something was wrong something was very, very, wrong, the black haired mutant stalked towards the bed room door.

"What are you doing?" Came the melodious voice from behind him, Raven twisted around fast, gun coming up, he squeezed the trigged and nothing happened. That was when he noticed something, the Colt was no longer in his hand.

Instead it was in the hand of a woman at the end of his bed, who was twirling it around on her index finger, a smug smile on her face as she looked at him in amusement. She was, in a word, radiant. Long white hair, that seemed to change to black the longer he looked at it only to change back again. Pale white skin that seemed to shine with an unnatural aura of heath and bestial vitality.

Her clothes were constantly shifting, one second a long black robe, the next a pair of Jeans and a white T-shirt to a black form fitting outfit. Raven took all this information in, in less than a second before teleporting.

Reappearing in a red flash above the woman's head a kick already coming down to split her skull. The woman's hand raced up grabbing his leg and twisting, the green eyed mutant didn't even have time to scream as he was slammed into the wall, creating a spider web of cracks. The woman just looked at him amused, the black haired mutant attempted to teleport again, nothing happened. Raven's eyes widened, the woman just smiled wider.

"Surprised?" She asked in a sing song tone. "You really shouldn't be you know," She continued looking at him closely before nodding as if approving of what she saw. "Your not exactly were you used to be you know, this is all in your head, your just dreaming." The woman continued, the Colt still being spun around on her finger.

Her eyes flicked to the door, Raven surged up his hands moving, blades of wind roared forward, aiming to cut the woman apart. They dissipated before they hit her, she just looked back at him with a mixture of fondness and exasperation on her face.

"You know you're not going to win." She told him simply, Raven growled and she smiled wider. "Ah that fire, that's why I like you." She said pointing at him before shrugging her smile vanishing from her face as her hand twitched. Raven found himself slammed against the wall and pinned there by an unseen force.

"I like you," The woman continued softly. "But you're so weak, you need more power I wonder what you could trade for it?" She said putting a finger to her lips in thought. "Who knows," She said shrugging. "But you're weak no doubt about that," She told him conversationally as her hand reached up near his eye. Her finger nails becoming black and elongating into claws as she nicked the underside of his left eye hard enough to scar. "See you can't stop me from doing what ever I want to you, you're weak."

The woman smiled at him, Raven felt unease as blood continued to trickle from the wound under his left eye, why wasn't it healing? The woman leaned forward and flicked him on the forehead, "You're weak, might want to do something to change that." She told him before looking at her nails. "Remember power can always be bargained for, provided you know who to talk to." The woman looked up and for the first time Raven noted that both her eyes were dead black, no other colour.

"Where am I, what do you want with me!?" The green eyed mutant managed to get out, the woman shrugged.

"Between nowhere and somewhere," She told him, before looking up and smiling her pink tongue darting out to lick some of his blood. "Or though to be more precise you're outside of time." The woman continued, Raven's tongue parted his lips to lick them, the woman's hand darted up and grabbed it stopping it's movement, she leaned forward opening her mouth her canines were longer than a normal humans should be, she bit his tongue lightly, just enough to draw blood and licked it smiling.

"Remember weakling," She told him in a sing song voice, "Power can be bargained for, if you know who to talk to." The woman told him before reaching up and kissing his forehead, Raven fell unconscious and faded from the dream world. The door to the room opened and a man walked inside. The woman took a moment to observe him.

He was tallish at six foot one. Hair a myriad of colours, black clashing with red and gold, the vibrant hair so different from when she had first met him in his youth. It was obvious that he had lost his left eye at some point, as the eye patch clearly told the world, the patch itself adorned with a single rose surrounded by thorns. His clothing was dark, his pants grey, combat boots black, a long grey shirt underneath a black trench coat that reached the back of his knees.

The woman had once asked him why he wore the trench coat, the man had admitted that he had long ago made it bullet proof and having most of his body covered by it made him feel better. She could see the pair of swords on his back, though the plethora of guns and other weapons were strangely absent. His remaining eye burned a mesmerising gold. He had an ageless quality about him, you couldn't tell if he was thirty or three hundred. Though the woman could tell you it was far closer to three hundred.

"So he's gone." The man stated, the woman nodded.

"He's a feisty one, much like you are." She replied with a smile the man seemed to glow with pride at the statement.

"Did you give him the message?" He asked, the woman nodded.

"Of course, don't worry he wont forget it." She assured him, the man nodded. "Still are you sure you want to do this?" She asked, she had known the man for many years and not even she had seen this coming. Though in retrospect she probably should have.

"Your a lot more talkative now than when we first met." The man shot back, the woman shrugged.

"You were less interesting back then." She replied, "are you sure?" She asked again, the man nodded and the woman sighed. "As you wish then." The man looked up at the ceiling for a second before looking at the woman and smiling.

"I thought I might make a move to where the others are, since you know it better than anyone how to get there care to guide me?" He asked, the woman huffed in mock annoyance.

"You're ditching me!?" She demanded, the man sighed.

"Drama queen," He muttered only to be hit over the back of the head by the irate woman.

"Just for that I think I'm going to come see them with you, it is about time we were all introduced after all," She stated, the man's face paled. Oh God this wasn't going to end well. She started dragging him towards the door to the room and yanked it open revealing an empty blackness that she stepped out into. "Come on! We can still make breakfast!" The woman declared, the man sighed, this wasn't going to end well. Still she was an old friend so if for nothing else he would do it to humour her.

As they left the room created in this place between time and space collapsed, neither gave it another thought. They had been doing this for a long, long, time, they were used to it by now.

**Chapter Five- End**

And that is the end of chapter 5 let the mass guessing commence.


	6. Chapter 6

**Weapons: Origin**

**Chapter Six: Reality and Illusion**

**Authors note-**

Hello, how you guys doin, you want more! Good!

Okay I had a simple question asked to me by a reviewer, no I don't know their name and I can't be bothered to check, I'm lazy so sue me. I'm going to paraphrase here because I don't remember the whole thing but I do remember the general gist of it. More or less, why did Doctor Strange not train Harry in magic considering that he knew Xavier? Because it makes no sense that he didn't. And though it may have been from a different reviewer, or at least I think it was from a different reviewer, why hasn't Harry done any accidental magic?

Both are good questions and both deserve to be answered. Which is why it kind of pains me to do this, I can't tell you. It's actually kind of an important plot point and I don't want to give it away right now. Suffice to say yes there is a reason for both and that reason will be told either before the Goblet of Fire or at the End of Death Masks. So for now all I can do is ask you for your patience, suffice to say that I do have a reason for both already worked out, but I can't tell you what it is right now.

Onto another question by another reviewer, What the hell is a Fallen? I honestly thought I explained that pretty well last chapter but for any of you that are still having trouble because you either couldn't understand or my explanation was just to choppy for you I will try again.

Fallen is the short form of saying Fallen Angel. 30 Fallen Angels are the beings that make up the Knights of the Blackened Denarius. It is suspected that the 30 silver Roman Denarius are actually the 30 pieces paid to Judas Iscariot when he betrayed Jesus Christ. But I digress.

If a human makes skin contact with a Roman Denarius that houses a Fallen Angel that Angel can communicate with that human and try to led them into a bargain that will make the human become what is known as a Denarian.

Denarian's are the human hosts of the Fallen Angels and are 'gifted', though I use the word loosely, with a contractual form of immortality, they are unable to age or get sick, though to the best of my knowledge they can still be poisoned, though that is extremely hard as their bodies are incredibly resilient. Or they can be killed by things like cutting off their heads or stabbing them through the heart, though shooting them will normally do little more than piss them off.

And that is basically the Fallen Angels and the Denarians in a nut shell. There is a heap more information on them but I wont go into that right now as some of it may come up in story and I don't want to have to write it out twice.

Also on the note of the Goblet of Fire I already have, at least part, of the first task planned out in my mind. And I want to share a little part of the way I'm planning at least part of it with you. But first thing, I'm going to need you to do a few things for me on your internet browser, just because this music makes it sound about a hundred times funnier.

First go to your browser and open a new tab after that go to Youtube, I make the assumption that a few of you have this bookmarked, then in the search window type in Corona by Minutemen, immediately pause the song and come back to this page, we only really want the first 30 seconds of it anyway.

You're back now? Okay good we're on the right track now. Okay next there's this ***** symbol a little way down in bold, next to that symbol are the only words I can think of right now to describe the way this fight is going to go in my mind. So please memorise the place that symbol is and tab out and hit play on that song I had you bring up earlier.

"Hi, my names is Harry Potter, and welcome to Jackass!"

Those are really the only words that do justice to the way I see the fight in my mind at the moment. At any rate this is either going to be the best idea I've ever had or a train wreak waiting to happen, I can't decide which, at any rate enjoy the next exciting chapter of Jackass! I mean Weapons: Origin, on with the show!

Also while I think about it Ave Maria the Hitman: Blood Money opening theme is the best opening theme in the history of video games, it just set the tone for the rest of the game so well.

On a side note to anyone who is a 'gun nut' in this chapter I mention a gun called a Vector .45 ACP, I have no idea if this is the real name of the weapon or a short form. But that was what Farcry 3 called it so that's what I'm going with.

**Story Start- **

The black haired teenager groaned, rolling out of bed and stumbling into the shower. The hot water hitting his body was enough to make him emit an almost sexual groan of pleasure. Raven stretched to the sky his spine cracking as his arms rose above his head. The black haired teen stepped out of the shower and grabbed his towel throwing it over his shoulders.

"That was a hell of a dream," The teen muttered as he looked into the mirror. Raven's breathing sped up, his heart beat thundered in his ears, mouth going dry, throat screaming for water. There under his left eye was a small scar that he knew, knew!, hadn't been there the day before, he hardly ever scared due to his healing factor. But there it was, a small puckered scar under his left eye.

"It wasn't a dream," He breathed out hoarsely. Raven sprinted out into the bed room, towel flying off his shoulders, and dived across the bed, snatching the Colt off of the bed side table and flicking the safety off. Water dripping onto the floor as he stood, looking for any clue as to where the woman had been.

The wall he had been slammed into was whole, no damage at all. He couldn't smell any perfume, that being said he wasn't sure if the woman wore any. The green eyed mercenary opened the door to his living space and entered, gun leading. Again he found nothing, nothing at all. Raven would be the first to admit that he was starting to freak out before getting it under control.

The black haired mutant took in deep breaths of air and focused on the spot in front of him, a flash of red lit up the room as he landed safely next to the front door, Raven nodded to himself. Okay so that worked, now what about the rest? Testing if his wind manipulation worked was simple enough, all he had to do was levitate a knife.

The black haired mutant grimaced and had the knife cut his finger, a cut that healed almost as fast as it had been made. The panic inside him was beginning to die down, it seemed like everything was okay. As if everything that had happened was just a dream, his hand flew to the skin underneath his left eye and caressed the newly formed scar. Except it wasn't a dream, so what was it? The woman mentioned something about being outside of time, but what did she mean by that exactly? Did she mean that the entire conversation had taken place somewhere that was unaffected by time? But how was that possible?

The mercenary shook his head, this problem could wait for later, much, much, later, preferably when he wasn't sober. Well at least when he was as far away from sober as he could get, his healing factor purged most poisons from his system with ease and alcohol was no different. Raven knew he would have to drink copious amounts of liquor to get even slightly buzzed, but he got the feeling that if he considered this problem for much longer he would be having a damn good go at making himself drunk as fuck no matter how long it took.

Raven calmed himself further and looked at the clock, he needed to get going soon. It was already eleven, he had overslept, sleeping gas or some kind of sleep inducing agent? At any rate he had to get to Saint Mary's and talk to Farther Forthill and pick up his information. Then find Dresden and get to know what the man knows before looking for the Shroud, hopefully this would be over with quickly, but somehow Raven got the feeling that even if it was over quickly it wouldn't be quick or easy.

The young mutant yawned as he walked back into his room and pulled on his clothes, it was nothing special, just something that he hoped would let him blend into the back ground. Jeans, sneakers, a long sleeved white shirt and a grey jacket. Next came the weapons, a Colt 1911 strapped into a shoulder holster on his left hand side, a pair of knives secured to his calves.

This was followed up by the duffel bag, as all that was inside was clothing Raven just dumped it on the bed. A sawn-off shot gun and a pair of Skorpion sub machine-guns, honestly even though he found them to be reliable Raven still felt that they were somewhat sub-standard. Ah well after this pay day maybe he could finally afford that Vector .45 ACP he had been wanting for the last few months. Sure he could probably have afforded it earlier but he didn't want his savings to take any more of a hit than it already had after he went out and brought the Rx-7 so Raven had decided to wait.

A half dozen clips were thrown in for the Skorpion's as well as a pouch full of shot gun shells. Raven looked down at his 'Toy Box' and smiled before leaning down and fiddling with the combination lock. It popped open quickly showing practised ease, Raven's smile couldn't help but get wider as he opened the lid and beheld the payload inside, it was a treasure trove of explosive ordnance.

The green eyed mutant never thought he'd say this but, God bless the black market. How they ever got their hands on this amount of C-4 he would never know. Inside the 'Toy Box' in addition to all the other explosive gadgets were twelve half kilo lumps of C-4 and a detonator. The black haired mercenary looked conflicted before sighing and grabbing three fragmentation grenades and two flash bangs before looking down at the C-4 again.

"Maybe next time honey," The slightly unhinged mercenary whispered to the plastic explosives before closing the lid to the 'Toy Box' and changing the combination. Raven knew he could probably be labelled as borderline insane at time but he was not stupid enough to leave the combination the same after ever use, that was just asking for trouble.

The black haired teen had decided to leave the Katana's for today, they were to conspicuous to have with him unless he knew for a fact he was about to fight someone, Raven was hoping that today was only going to be for information gathering. The green eyed teen stood up and grabbed the car keys off of the bedside table before looking closely at the brand.

"Toyota huh?" Raven mused to himself before shrugging and picking up the apartment keys. The black haired mutant quickly check that he had left no weapons lying around and that the suit case and the 'Toy Box' were still locked before walking out of the place whistling a jaunty tune. Truth be told that dream, could he still call it a dream?, still scared the fuck out of him, but it could wait, there was money to be made!

Raven continued to whistle to himself as he walked to the stairs, sure he could just teleport but he had no idea where the security camera's were and no desire to be caught on tape by someone. The duffel bag was slung over his shoulder, the green eyed teen just starred off into space as he headed further down. His apartment was on the third floor while the car was on the basement level so at least he wasn't very far away. The green eyed mutant smiled as he opened the door out into the garage, then his phone went off.

"Young Man Ther-" The phone was out and up to his ear in an instant. He had either forgotten something or this was important. No one would call him when he was on a job otherwise.

"Hello" Raven said into the phone.

"Yo," Came back the ever cheerful voice of Laura. Raven pulled the phone away from his ear and checked the time. Yep she should be in class right now, it seemed like she was cutting, again. The black haired mutant shrugged it off as his friend continued talking, no skin off his nose. "I forgot to tell you something last night. When you go pick up the souvenirs don't forget to get one for Kurt as well, I'm pretty sure I forgot to mention him last night." Laura told the green eyed mutant who nodded as he walked through the underground parking lot looking for his rented car.

"Got it," Raven said back as he saw what Strange had rented him and felt a great sense of disappointment, still he was probably less conspicuous this way. "Was that everything or was there something else, cause I'm kind of on the clock here."

"Nope that was it," Laura replied, "Have a nice time, bye."

"You too," Raven replied before hanging up and looking back at the hunk of junk in front of him. It was a nineteen ninety seven Toyota Camry. Granted the car rental company had obviously taken very good care of it but compared to his Rx-7 it was a definite step down. The green eyed mercenary sighed and flicked the immobilizer before dumping the duffel bag into the back seat and jumping into the divers.

The car purred to life and Raven pulled out of the parking bay before setting his phone near the hand break and selecting the Google Maps app. It was so handy for finding his way around. The black haired mutant pulled out onto the road the phone guiding him were he needed to go.

It was fairly obvious when he arrived. The Church was located at the corner of Bloomingdale and Wood, down by Wicker Park. It was a magnificent structure, red bricked, large, it was the kind of place that just kind of screamed holy. The kind of place that made one feel lighter, like everything was going to be okay.

In the past Raven had more or less ignored it when he went past a Church that had an aura like that, not that he had found many that did. Considering that he now knew that there really were things that went bump in the night maybe he would start giving that feeling a little more credit and mark those Church's as a safe place to run to should the supernatural shit hit the fan.

The green eyed mutant pulled into a parking bay and sighed as he got out of the car and pulled out the duffel bag, he got the feeling that this was the start of a very long day. The rose gardens at the front of the structure gave it a somewhat peaceful feeling as he walked to towards the front door. Like the rest of the Church the door was a huge affair, large and oak giving it a feeling of both age and wisdom, how a door could seem to have wisdom Raven would never know, but there it was.

The green eyed mutant spotted a small side door and quickly walked over to it before rapping on it loudly with his knuckles and stepping back to wait. His right hand already had a distortion over it, if Forthill proved to be an enemy the man would be dead before he could blink.

The sound of bolts sliding could be heard from the other side of the door, not that Raven found that to be particularly strange. Saint Mary's was a huge Church and obviously well cared for, it would not surprise him in the slightest that if the doors were left open something's inside the Church went for a walk and didn't come back. The door swung open revealing an aging man that looked to be in his late fifties. He was balding slightly and his hair was steel grey, he wore the weight of his years comfortably. He was in a traditional priests cassock, the white band around his neck sticking out from the black clothes, Raven would say that the man wore the mark of his rank well. The old man looked him up and down for a second before smiling widely.

"Ah, good morning." The man's voice was calm and soothing, Raven found it quite pleasant to listen to. "How may I help you young man?" The priest inquired, the green eyed mutant extended his right arm for a hand shake.

"Father Forthill I presume?" Raven asked as the man grasped his hand firmly revealing the old man to have a surprisingly strong grip. The old man nodded the calm smile never once leaving his face.

"Yes, I am Father Anthony Forthill," The old man confirmed his guess as they shook before letting go of the younger man's hand. "What can I do for you today Mr..." The priest trailed off not knowing the young man's name, Raven gave a sheepish smile.

"Just call me Raven," He replied, the green eyed mutant actually liked this man. That was quite the change from the way it normally was when he met normal humans.

"Alright then, Master Raven." The old priest replied, hiding his surprise at the outlandish, and obviously fake, name quite well. "May I ask why you have come to this house of God on this day?" Father Forthill inquired, Raven's face lost it's smile.

"Could we talk inside Father, this conversation is not for prying ears." Raven asked, the priest looked at him for a second before nodding and opening the door wider.

"Of course my child." The Catholic replied as Raven smiled and walked inside. The elderly priest led him to a small back room, illuminated by the warm glow of the sun coming in from it's window. Father Forthill gestured for him to sit in one of the chairs as he sat down in an arm chair behind the only desk in the room.

As Raven sat he saw a dull metal colour under the desk, it took him less than a second to realise what it was, a .44 Magnum. The priest was no fool, it seemed that if he was hostile then Forthill would do his best to incapacitate him, he'd actually met a priest that used a gun before and in his words. 'The Bible does indeed have some very specific things to say on killing, it is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps,' It seemed that Forthill subscribed to the same school of thought, smart man. When he was comfortably seated the old priest decided to speak.

"Now then young man what do you wish to talk about?" Forthill inquired, Raven dropped all pretences of his business being harmless.

"I'm looking for the Shroud of Turin. I know it was stolen, I know that it's in this city and I've been hired to help find it." The black haired mercenary took a deep breath before continuing. "Also if you could direct me to Harry Dresden or someone who knows where I can find him I would be greatly obliged. I was asked to help with his investigation into who stole the Shroud and then help in it's return." The black haired teen finished as he saw Forthill's hand moving ever so subtlety under his desk. Most people wouldn't have noticed it, Raven was not most people.

"Please refrain from going for the .44 taped to the underside of your desk Father, I don't want to have to hurt you." Forthill stopped moving but his eyes watched the young man in front of him warily.

"May I ask who hired you?" The old priest inquired, his voice had an edge of steel to it. Raven couldn't help the smile that came to his face. Oh he liked this man.

"A Doctor Stephen Strange." Came the green eyed mercenary's clipped rely, Forthill's brow wrinkled in confusion.

"Why would a Doctor have an interest in having the Shroud returned?" He asked, Raven shrugged.

"No idea," He said flatly. "I do know that the Knights of the Blackened Denarius are after it for some reason." The green eyed teen didn't miss the narrowing of the priests eyes. "Strange is also a Magic user so that might have something to do with it." He continued, ignoring the old man's now intrigued look. "To be honest, I don't care why he wants me to help get it back to the Church." Raven admitted with a shrug. "It's a job and I've got a lot of reasons, two hundred and fifty thousand to be exact, to want to make sure it's successful." The priest's eyes narrowed at the young man's declaration.

"You had said earlier that you were hired." He said lowly, "so you're a mercenary then?" The priest inquired, there was little judgement in his tone but there was some. Raven shook it off, after doing this job for so long, as long as he had been free really, he was more than used to the way people reacted when they found out that you weren't doing the right thing because it was the right thing to do, but, rather, because you were being paid for it.

The fact that he used the skills that the scientists had pounded into his head to make a living kind of made him want to laugh. If he hadn't been able to get free then they would have made him fight and kill for them, instead he fought and killed for the highest bidder, which was probably what they would have made him do anyway, the irony was not lost on him.

"Indeed," Raven stated nodding his head before smiling at the old priest. "Now about that information?" Forthill seemed to consider it for a second.

"How do I know you're actually here to do as you say?" The elderly priest inquired, the green eyed teen shrugged.

"You don't," he stated simply. "That being said you didn't deny that the Shroud was in this city so you have to trust something about me." The black haired teen replied with a roguish grin. Father Forthill looked at the young man in front of him for a second before coming to a decision.

"Mr. Dresden will be at this very Church at some point today accompanied by some people who are also looking for the Shroud, I will let them be the judge of whether or not to let you help them." Forthill stated, Raven nodded. The old man was smarter than he looked, he didn't give any names that would let him find these people in advance and learn about them or find a way to influence them. The green eyed mutant also noted that Forthill didn't give him exact numbers, only saying 'some people.'

"Very well, where may I wait for them?" Raven inquired looking around the room, the elderly priest looked him up and down for a second.

"For the time being you can wait in the chapel, my office is just off to the side of it and you can ask me anything you need to know while I do my work." The black haired mercenary nodded his head in thanks to the priest and followed him as the two walked down the twisting hallways of Saint Mary's.

Raven couldn't hold in the whistle of awe that came to his lips when he saw the chapel, the high ceilings, and mosaics were astounding, if the old priest was the one who was entrusted with all of this the Vatican must think him a good man indeed. Or he was the only man left for the job, one or the other. Father Forthill stiffened looking at the chapel, it took less than a second for Raven to see why.

Sitting in one of the pews was a woman with fiery red hair, a pair of simple no-nonsense shoes, easy to move in black pants and a dark blue shirt complete with matching Jacket. From what Raven could tell by the look of the woman, she was also armed to the teeth. The woman stood, her movements like flowing water as she stalked towards the elderly priest, a business like expression on her face.

"Natalie Rushman," The woman said simply holding out her hand for the elderly priest to shake, Father Forthill took it gingerly as if it might explode on him, to be honest Raven didn't blame the man. "I'm here to help you recover the Shroud." She continued, the elderly priest sighed. "If you could tell me what you know and where to find Michael Carpenter and Harry Dresden I would be grateful." At this point Raven would admit to being somewhat torn.

On one hand she had all but admitted to being the 'Government Agent' that Strange had warned him about. The fact that she mentioned the Shroud in front of him proved that she either knew who he was, or at least why he was there, and simply chose to go straight to business. Or she was completely incompetent, in which case Raven felt that he should just put a bullet in her skull now and same someone else the trouble, that being said he didn't actually believe his second theory.

The reason he was torn was simple, he liked the woman. Not on a personal level, as in he liked her personality, or on a physical level, that being said she was very attractive. No the green eyed killer liked Natalie Rushman on a professional level. He liked the straight to business types when he worked with them it made most things go smoother. Father Forthill turned to the black haired teen.

"Do you know her?" He asked sound resigned, Raven shook his head before stepping between the elderly priest and, what he assumed to be, the S.H.I.E.L.D agent and held out his hand.

"Raven," He introduced himself simply, the woman took his hand and shook. "You the S.H.I.E.L.D agent that Strange told me about?" He asked, Natalie nodded, Raven smiled, faster than one could blink the two were holding a gun against the others head. "Why don't you prove it then," Raven said tersely, his voice cold enough to make ice of water while ignoring the cold metal of the Glock on his temple.

"How about you prove that you're the one that Strange sent first?" The red head replied her voice as warm as an Arctic blizzard, neither moved. "It seems we're at an impasse," Natalie said, the cold metal of the Colt being held to her temple being completely ignored.

"Indeed," Raven replied, not nodding for fear that the woman might fire thinking he was about to try something. The same reason he suspected she hadn't moved. One of them needed to make the first move, she was a Government Agent, or at least he thought she was, so who was going to make the first move? The black haired teen held in a sigh.

"In a second I'm going to take my gun away from your head, when that's done I want you to remove your gun from mine, then we can talk. If you're really the agent that Strange told me about then I assume you know at least the basics about me so you know how hard this is for me." The green eyed assassin stated calmly.

"However you should also know that in the time it would take you to pull that trigger of yours I could kill you, so do something stupid and we both die." Raven fished, the Colt was removed slowly, and place back inside his shoulder holster. Raven held in a cold sweat he really hopped that his instincts were right about this woman or he would be finding out if his reflexes would let him dodge a bullet. Oh the green eyed teen had no doubt that if she fired he could kill her, but that didn't make him feel any better about the possibility of joining 'Natalie Rushman' in the after life.

The woman looked at him closely for a second, her blue-green eyes flashing dangerously. A distortion appeared in the air above the woman, if she fired she would be cut apart. The Glock was removed from his temple with a smooth motion showing years of practice and real combat experience. Father Forthill let out a breath from behind them, the man had some experience in matters like these it seemed, had he spoken or interfered earlier he may well have made the situation worse and then someone probably would have died.

"Now can we talk about this like civilised people please?" Forthill half asked half demanded getting a stiff nod from both of the assassin's before him.

"Of course Father," The red head stated neutrally, ignoring the elderly priests huff of 'Thank the Lord for small mercy's', the S.H.I.E.L.D agent turned back to the mutant. "According to some of our files you can manipulate the air and heal, prove that to me and it's all the assurance I need." Natalie said.

Natalie's eyes told Raven on no uncertain terms that if she thought for even a second that he was an imposter her gun would be back out and this time she wouldn't wait before putting a bullet through his skull. The black haired mutant nodded and raised one hand, causing a nearby pew to raise a foot off the ground before lowing it back. Natalie nodded as the pew came down. She knew about his abilities, Raven got the feeling that Strange somehow knew he was going to say yes to this job before he had asked.

"That's the wind, now about the healing?" Raven nodded and reached down snagging a knife out of one of the holsters around his calves. The K-bar shining brightly in the centre of the Chapel, in a single swift movement the green eyed mutant brought the blade across the palm of his hand. Red staining the formerly shining steel blade of the knife, Raven held his palm up for the S.H.I.E.L.D agent to inspect the red head nodded as she saw the cut heal shut, Raven turned to the aging priest who was looking decidedly pale.

"Father could I trouble you for a spare piece of cloth or a handkerchief please, I would like to wipe the blood off my knife before I put it back in the sheath." Raven asked, turning around to face the elderly priest, the question seemingly shaking Forthill out of his momentary paralysation upon seeing the young man make a decent attempt to maim himself.

"Forget the knife boy!" The priest snapped, before grabbing Raven's, unbloodied, hand. "We've got to get your hand bandaged," The priest continued, Raven felt a little confused. Why would his hand need to be bandaged? His healing factor took care of the injury, that was when he realised it. Forthill had been on the wrong angle to see his skin heal up so the priest probably saw the blood and thought he was injured.

The green eyed mercenary knew that the elderly priest had heard what Natalie had said about his healing factor but considering that he hadn't seen it first hand, being behind the two, he probably thought that Raven had maimed, or at the very least injured, himself due to all the blood. The black haired killer set his weight and stopped Forthill from being able to drag him off to the first aid room of the Church.

"Thank you for your concern Father," Raven said honestly, smiling at the elderly priest. "But I'm fine really, see look." The black haired teen held up his bloody hand for inspection by the aging Catholic. Who took one look at the hand before having his eyes widen and stepping back.

"How?" The question was asked with an almost desperate desire to know he was okay behind it. The green eyed mutant couldn't help it as his smile changed from one of reassurance to fondness. It seemed that the elderly priest was one of the few humans that he actually could like.

"I have a healing factor," Raven stated simply. "Almost any injury that I get can be healed from extremely quickly, if not instantly, depending on the severity of the wound." The green eyed mutant watched for a hostile reaction from the man before him, who took a second to compose himself.

"How does it work?" Father Forthill inquired, a small sense of awe lacing his tone. Raven had to hold in a sigh. Oh so him levitating a pew was nothing to get exited about but now he can heal and suddenly BOOM! Now I must know everything. That being said considering that Forthill knew about the Shroud and Magic maybe the pew thing really wasn't so impressive to him.

Looked like no Magic user that that the old priest knew could regenerate. HA, take that Magic! Mutants one, Magic Zero! Raven forcefully stopped his inner monologue before it went any further and considered Forthill's question.

"To put it in layman's terms when my body detects an injury my cells rapidly divide in order to heal the affected area. However each new cell is close to identical to the cell that came before it, so similar in fact that it takes an exceptional injury for me to so much as scar." Raven stated simply, the elderly priest looked intrigued and opened his mouth to ask another question, the green eyed mutants hand came up stopping it before it was voiced. "Sorry Father but that's all I'm willing to say." The teen stated before cocking his head to the side for a second. "Now about that handkerchief?" Raven let the statement hang, Forthill reached into his pocket an drew out a blue, and thankfully unused, handkerchief.

"Here you are," The elderly priest said, sounding slightly out of it. Raven just whistled to himself as he cleaned the K-bar, before wiping the blood off his hand and turning back to the priest.

"Is there a washing basket I can put this in or something?" He asked, sounding a little abashed. Even with his back turned to her Raven was watching Natalie out of the reflective surface of the silver cup on the dais behind Father Forthill the alter still had no candles lit he noted. If the woman made a single threatening move she would die. Forthill seemed to comeback to himself, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs.

"Give it here child I will place it in the washing basket later." The priest replied, Raven shrugged and handed the, now scarlet, handkerchief back to it's owner before turning back to the red head.

"Now it's your turn," Raven said simply. "Guess we'll start with Identification, you got a badge or a document to prove your with S.H.I.E.L.D?" The black haired mercenary asked with a somewhat resigned shrug. The red bent down, picking up a small back pack and drawing out a small leather pouch, a shiny bronze metal plaque attached to one side. The red head threw the badge over to her black haired counterpart giving him a good look at the object. It was fashioned exactly like a police badge, an eagle taking pride of place on the badge with a shield holding the colours of the American flag superimposed before the bird. Around it's edge were the words 'Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division', Raven gave the badge a quick once over.

"I can see why you use the acronym," He said after a moment gaining a small nod from the red head. "I can't imagine that a Government agency like yours actually give these kind of things out. Made special just for me?" Raven inquired, gaining another nod.

"Yes, made just for you and Dresden. The badge gets scrapped after this mission. I don't think that's all you want though is it?" Natalie stated, it wasn't a question, Raven held in a snort of laughter.

"Of course not, it's going to take more than a shiny badge to make me actually believe you are who you say you are. Strange told me that your particular agency knows about my kind, what do you know?" The black haired killer asked, Raven could almost swear that he could see a kind of smug smile on the red head's face.

"I know the basics your kind, as you so put it, has abilities beyond ordinary humans. As for what I know about you personally. Your real name is unknown, aliases, Raven, Odin Mimir, age, suspected to be at sixteen to seventeen, goes to Bayville High, do I need to go on?" Natalie asked, Raven shook his head. The woman knew to much, if she really was part of S.H.I.E.L.D then it was probably an information gathering agency first and foremost, the black haired killer put out his right hand.

"Lets try this again, nice to meet you I'm Raven," The green eyed mutant said as the red head took his hand and shook, her grip was firm.

"Nice to meet you I'm Natalie Rushman," The red head replied getting a nod from her black haired counterpart.

Father Anthony Forthill let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. In all honesty the elderly priest had been trying to stay out of the conversation. Despite the way he looked Anthony had been in situations like the one that had just passed before, they were powder kegs waiting to blow, had he been involved there was a good chance one of the two young people in front of him would have died.

"I'm glad you've cleared that up," The priest stated firmly. Deciding that now that everything had calmed down he could address the girls earlier questions. "Now then I do believe that you were looking for Harry Dresden and Michael Carpenter correct Miss Rushman?" Anthony asked, Natalie dipped her head in a quick nod. "I see, then you may wait with Master Raven, here in the Chapel. Mr. Dresden will be here at some point today and I assume that you do not mind waiting for him?" The elderly priest finished, the red haired S.H.I.E.L.D agent nodded.

"That will be fine," Natalie replied nodding her head. The green haired mutant couldn't help the snort of laughter that escaped him, causing Father Forthill to look at him strangely and the red heads eyes to narrow.

"Wow, that, that's just gold. A member of a Government Agency, a Government Spy Agency, unless I miss my guess." Raven said, still choking down some laughter. "And you can't just, I don't know, call in some help and have them hack security feeds or something to find Dresden faster? You actually have to wait for him to show up here?" The black haired teen asked incredulously of his elder counterpart, Natalie, if that was her real name, and Raven knew that it wasn't, no intelligence Agent worth a damn would give out their real name to people they didn't trust and had only met recently, just sighed.

"It's not that simple," She admitted after a second. "Sure I could have Harry Dresden or Michael Carpenter tracked down in real time but why waste the time and the effort if they're coming to me anyway?" The red head inquired, Raven thought about it for a second before nodding at his counterparts statement and dropping the issue. She had a point, besides the two would be more comfortable meeting them in a place they were familiar with and with Father Forthill introducing them Dresden and this Michael Carpenter would be more predisposed towards trusting them, even if only subconsciously. It was a good plan, he quietly applauded the red head in his mind, his body making no hint as to what he was thinking.

It was at that exact moment that Father Anthony Forthill realised something. The two people in front of him didn't like each other in more than a professional sense, that much was obvious. They didn't trust each other, that was even more blinding obvious, but it didn't matter. Because at that moment the elderly priest realised something, they didn't need to. Because despite not even really liking or trusting each other in front of him stood two people who, in some sick and twisted fashion, understood each other.

"Well then I will be in my office please call if you need something." The elderly priest stated before walking off towards his office, the S.H.I.E.L.D Agent and the Assassin for hire looked at each other for another second or two, waiting for the office door to close. When it did, Natalie opened her mouth as Raven walked away from the pews.

"Could you remove the air blades currently hanging above my head?" The red head asked, Raven shook his head.

"Only if you remove the C-4 strapped all around us right now." He countered, the female spy seemed to considered it for a second before nodding and pulling out the decelerator, Raven didn't even flinch when he saw the device. Natalie pressed a small blue button on the top of the device and a small beep echoed around the two of them, Raven wasn't startled in the slightest, he had worked with C-4 for long enough to become accustomed to the sound of the plastic explosives being defused, Natalie raised a single perfect eyebrow at him, the distortion in the air above her disappeared.

"You missed one," The red head spoke simply and pointed to the alter behind the black haired teen who turned and cursed internally. There within the unlit candles was a carefully placed, and well disguised, portion of C-4, he had never even seen it. Raven mastered himself and turned back to the woman before raising an eyebrow of his own.

"So did you," He countered and pointed down, the female spy looked down and saw the ground in her blind spot, if she looked closely enough, seemed to have a slight heat haze to it. She cursed internally and turned back to the mercenary in front of her.

Neither one smiled at the other, neither one admitted that each had managed to get one over on the other, instead the two Assassins chose to sit down on pews that left a safe amount of room between them and the other and pull out their weapons for a quick check over. Neither asked what the other was doing, they didn't trust each other, they certainly didn't like each other outside of a professional sense, but they did understand each other.

And sometimes, that's all that you need.

**Chapter Six- End**


	7. Chapter 7

**Weapons: Origin**

**Chapter Seven: Knights, Assassins and Wizards**

**Authors Note-**

Let me start by saying

IRON MAN 3 IS FUCKING AMAZING!

Thank you for indulging me with that, now onto the actual authors note.

As for why none of my stories have been update recently, I was lazy, okay there you have it I said it.

Other than that not much action this chapter, just kind of a set up for later ones, though there will definitely be at least one fight scene in the next chapter. Which I assure you will contain explosions, why? Because I like explosions. Also if any of you haven't seen Iron Man 3 I would advise you to avoid the next paragraph as it may contain a spoiler.

I can honestly say I am looking forward to writing Iron Man 3 into this story, Genetically Enhanced Mutant VS Weird-Fire-Healing-Things and GO!

Spoiler done you can start reading again.

**IMPORTANT! **Okay while I haven't been asked this I just want to say it anyway just in case someone reading this hasn't seen Iron Man 2 but Natalie Rushman is the alias that Natasha Romanoff used to infiltrate Stark industries.

Also anyone who reads the Marvel comics would you mind sending me a PM because when I did a little research on Wiki about Natasha Romanoff it listed her name as Natalia (Natasha) Alianova Romanova. So is Natasha Romanoff just another code name or something if some one could tell me which is her real name would be great cause I'm kind of confused here.

As for this chapter I kind of have a Meh feeling towards it, I don't think its a bad chapter but I do feel like I could have done some parts better than I did. So if anyone finds any scene lacklustre please do put it in a review or a PM and let me know what scene it was and how you think it could have been improved so I know for next time. And for the love of god please do put in why you thought it was lacklustre and how it could be improved.

There really is nothing more infuriating as a writer than getting a review saying 'this sucked' and giving no reasons why it did or how it could be improved on. I don't dislike constructive criticism, in fact I welcome it, but it does actually have to be constructive. Sorry I kind of went off on a tangent there but it happens more than you'd think so I just wanted to be clear.

Also just if anyone was wondering why I decided to place Raven/Harry into the Dresden files rather than using some of the X-men Evolution story lines that I could at the moment that is actually quite simple. At his current level he would take the Brotherhood, with the exception of Magneto, Mystique and Sabertooth, apart without breaking a sweat. They don't really become what I would call 'threatening' villains until around the end of season 2. Don't get me wrong Harry/Raven will be involved in the X-men evolution story arcs before then but it will be more to a passive role than an active one.

I'm actually quite looking forward to writing his and Wanda's interactions as they will both be trying to constantly use each other later on.

Also at some point in this chapter I have written something that seems like a blatant attempt at making Harry/Raven sound more like a badass. To a degree this is true, it is somewhat of a blatant attempt at doing just that. However this particular story device will also become far more prominent later on in the story and cause a lot of problems. Trust me you'll know it when you come to it. At any rate, let's get this show on the road shall we?

**Story Start- **

Raven yawned, damn this was boring. The green eyed mutant was starting to regret waiting at the Church for Dresden and not insisting that Forthill just tell him where the man was so he could just find the bastard. By this point he had been waiting inside the Chapel for hours, it was already dark outside and there was only so many times Raven could check a weapon before it became redundant. The only thing keeping him sane at this point was his phone and Angry Birds, it wasn't the best game ever created, but it was interesting enough to keep thoughts of potential homicide from his mind.

Raven wondered if Natalie was having similar problems. Neither had spoken a word to the other since they had sat down, neither saw the need. They were here to do a job, not make friends. The green eyed mutant couldn't help but sigh as he saw Father Forthill walk into the Chapel again. Raven had actually seen the elderly priest quite often, he checked in with the two Assassins in his Chapel once every hour or so to see if he could get them anything. The black haired teen was willing to admit to having some fondness for the old priest by this point, he was a nice guy. For a human anyway.

Raven sighed as he rubbed the small puckered scar under his left eye absently, the green eyed mutant had been doing that a lot lately. Raven yawned again and leaned back into the pew he was sitting on, it was actually quite comfy, which surprised the teenage mutant considering that they didn't look all that comfortable. Raven supposed the saving grace of the whole time he had been inside the Chapel of saint Mary's had been the exquisite art work and craftsmanship that was on display inside. Whoever had done it clearly took pride in their work and it showed, it also spoke very well of the people maintaining the Church that everything still looked very close to brand new, or failing that it looked extremely well cared for.

"I have just received a phone call from one of the people looking for the Shroud. Mr. Dresden in on his way here now with them if both of you would like to follow me I will take you to the room that Harry will be taken to when he arrives." Forthill stated in a kind tone, getting a nod from both Assassins who stood without comment and followed the elderly priest into the back rooms of Saint Mary's Cathedral.

Raven could honestly admit that the rest of the Cathedral was as impressive as the rest, it was obviously well cared for to. Anthony led the two Assassin's deeper into the church, up a flight of stairs to a storage room whose boxes had been stacked to the ceiling to make room for a number of folding cots, blocking the view of any windows. A mismatched pair of old lamps lit the room in soft gold.

Natalie entered the room first. The green eyed mutant could see her caressing her gun lightly as she entered, crouching down slightly. He knew why she had crouched, so that if there was an enemy inside the room that he saw first Raven could shoot them without worrying about shooting her, it was a good plan. The green eyed mutant followed his red haired counter part inside, his own hand ready to draw his weapon in an instant.

Raven gave the room a quick once over before sitting down on one of the cots and settling into wait, an action that was mirrored by his red haired counterpart. Father Forthill looked at the two for a second before nodding to himself.

"Mr. Dresden should be here shortly, as will the other people seeking the Shroud you shouldn't have to wait to much longer. I imagine that today has been quite boring to the two of you." The elderly priest added slyly, Raven held in a small chuckle, the priest had hit the nail on the head with that one.

"We will be fine, thank you for your concern Father." Natalie replied, leaning back a little more into the stack of boxes behind the cot she was sitting on. The elderly priest just nodded once before walking out of the room without another word, the two Assassins lapsed back into comfortable silence. Though comfortable for them meant ready to move and kill anything that looked at them the wrong way.

The two sat in silence, neither felt the need to speak. They had nothing to talk about, all that was between them was the job, that was it. If they ended up actually trusting each other by the end of this then maybe they would make small talk, but until then silence was by far preferred. Though the fact that each was planning to kill the other if necessary may have had something to do with it.

It wasn't until ten minutes later that the two could hear foot steps on the paving outside the room, that might be Dresden. Each Assassin moved to a better vantage point, Natalie hiding herself in the corner of the room and throwing a C-4 charge near the door, a final fuck you should everything go to hell and she was about to die.

Raven took up a position facing the door, a wide welcoming smile on his face. What he was doing, however, was anything but welcoming, the ceiling of the room shimmered as if in a heat haze, enough wind blades collecting to cut through the room like butter turning everything inside into little more than rubble and bloodstains. His own final fuck you. The distortion in the air vanished, hidden under a cloaking layer of wind, perfect for an ambush.

The two continued to wait as the footsteps drew closer, Raven adjusted himself slightly, allowing Natalie a perfect shot at the door, along with Dresden and his companions should everything turn to shit. The green eyed mutant couldn't see it but he could feel the nod of thanks from behind him from his red haired counterpart.

The black haired Assassin placed a block of air behind his head, he was not getting shot there, one of only two places that could actually kill him. To be honest he wasn't sure how well the air block would stand up to bullets, he was good at his wind manipulation, very, very, good, but he still hadn't tried blocking to many bullets. Divert yes, block no. Personally Raven preferred for his targets to never know he was coming and thus he never really needed to perfect a wind shield that could block a bullet, he deeply regretted that now and made a mental note to put it to rights when he got back to the Institute, if he got back.

The foot steps drew closer, the two could actually hear voices now. Neither voice sounded threatening but you could never tell and more importantly they were dealing with magic, who knew what kind of tricks that Dresden had up his sleeve, better safe than sorry. Raven tensed slightly as the footsteps stopped, his body getting ready to move at the slightest provocation. The door handle rattled as it swung inward giving the two Assassins their first look at Harry Dresden.

He was...tall, that was the first thing that Raven noticed about the man. He was somewhere between six foot seven to six foot nine, or roughly two meters to two meters and ten centimetres depending on what numbering system you were using. Slightly unshaven, Raven could definitely see some five O'clock shadow, brown eyes, lithe form. Wearing a leather duster and holding a long wooden stick, Raven guessed that must be his staff, wow Wizards actually needed those things?

Raven noted that the man did not seem surprised to see him, the green eyed mutant assumed that it was Forthill that mentioned that people wanted to see him. Though Dresden did seem to look around the room a little warily, probably looking for Natalie, well good luck to him. Raven honestly doubted that he would find her unless the woman wanted to be found.

Then came his companions, the first was a large dark skinned man carrying a sword, a sabre to be precise. He was a large man, not fat, just large. Well muscled and moving easily, though Raven did note the man's broken arm. His eyes were slightly narrowed when the black haired mercenary met his gaze. Before his eyes shifted looking around the room for Natalie, again the green eyed mutant doubted that the man would find her unless she wanted to be found.

The next man was old, that was really the only way to put. The way he moved though, it put Raven on guard. He didn't know how he knew this but this little old man, of quite obviously Asian decent, with his white hair and thick corrective glasses, was easily the most dangerous person in the room. Despite his seemingly unassuming and gentle looks, he could feel the gun behind him shift from Dresden to the old man, it seemed the red head had picked up on the danger that the old man posed as well.

The last man brought up the rear of the group, he was older than Dresden, or at least he looked older. well trimmed beard on his face, a few flecks of grey through it. Short black hair and warm eyes, the man carried himself well, not over bearing but not seeming like a push over either, a double sided European broad sword was belted to his waist. The man's eyes scanned the room for danger like his companions, like the others Raven wished him luck but doubted that he would see the woman he was quite obviously looking for.

Raven took a step back and gestured to the cot he had vacated when Natalie and he had heard the groups footsteps.

"You with the broken arm," He stated making the man stop his search for the female Assassin and pay attention to the one in front of him. "Sit down, you need to get that set before it can be bandaged." The man snorted in derision.

"I will be fine." He stated in return, Raven noted the foreign accent he spoke with as Russian, his eyes returned searching the shadows for the red head. Honestly Raven was quite impressed with how long Natalie had been able to hide for considering it was a rather small room and she had four people looking for her, she definitely out did him in the sneaking category.

"Don't be foolish boy," The old Asian man snapped stabbing at the cot that Raven had just indicated with his cane. "Sit down, I will go and get us some food," The elderly man stated, as he turned back towards the door. The man with a broken arm looked put out as he sat down, Dresden taking a seat across from the man. Raven took a look at the three men left in the room.

"Raven, Mercenary." He said simply, stating his name and occupation and getting some raised eye brows at the obviously fake name. The Wizard nodded slowly.

"Harry Dresden, Wizard," The black haired man stated, looking as if he didn't quite know how to handle the younger man. Raven nodded and turned to the other two men in the room.

"And you two are?" The green eyed mutant inquired politely.

"Sanya," The black man respond, still looking at his broken arm, the teens eyes made there way to the last man in the room.

"Michael Carpenter, It is nice to meet you." The man said with a warm smile holding out his hand, Raven took the offered limb and shook firmly. The man had a very strong grip, that sword was not just for show. "Now I do believe that there was a young lady here to see me, may I ask where she is?" The man inquired, Raven snorted and pointed over Michael's shoulder. The older man turned as Natalie seemed to melt out of the darkness, her expression all business as she extend her hand.

"Nice to meet you Mr. Carpenter, my name is Natalie Rushman I'm here to help you find the Shroud." To Michael's credit he didn't so much as look surprised as the woman stepped forward from the shadows and took the offered hand. Though Dresden and Sanya's mouths were currently making a very good attempt at becoming close acquaintances with the floor.

Not that Raven blamed them really, he was quite good at both sneaking and hiding and even he was having trouble figuring out how Natalie had been able to blend into such a small amount of darkness. Not to mention sneaking around the entire room to get there, that was just impressive.

"It is good to meet you Miss Rushman," Michael replied, his voice a deep baritone, rich and strong, much like his appearance. "May I ask you how you heard about the missing Shroud?" He inquired politely, Natalie nodded.

"The organisation that I work for found out that it was missing, they deployed me to help you get it back. The fact that the Knights of the Blackened Denarius want it was decided to be too much of a security risk and so someone need to be sent in. I was told to work with you and Harry Dresden in order to get it back." The red head stated simply, the man nodded taking in the information but withholding judgement for now. Natalie turned to the still seated Wizard and held out her hand.

"Nice to meet you Mr. Dresden," The red head stated in a professional tone, her blue-green eyes giving away nothing. "I am Natalie Rushman, I was told to work with you and Mr. Carpenter to get the Shroud back." The Wizards hand rose and shook the red heads offered hand.

"Harry Dresden," He introduced himself again. His words were somewhat guarded, that was good, it meant he didn't trust to easily and more importantly it meant that he wouldn't just take their word on face value. "If you don't mind me asking, why do you want to help?" Dresden directed his question to the green eyed mercenary who smirked.

"I'm being paid to," Raven answered simply the smirk never leaving his face. The Wizard seemed a little apprehensive at the green eyed teens answer. Which was probably a good thing, mercenary's in general didn't have a great reputation for being trust worthy. Most of the time they would betray their current employer for more money, or at least the ones without so much of a shred of professional pride would.

Raven, however, wouldn't, so long as he had a contract, and got his money on time. He would not violate the terms of his contract unless the person that he was dealing with was so morally reprehensible that Raven literally couldn't work for them, even mercenary's had standards after all. Surprisingly the next question didn't come from the Wizard but rather from the old man who had only just returned with some water and sandwiches.

"Do you love money then boy?" The old man inquired. The question wasn't asked with venom or disgust as Raven had expected. No, it had been asked with honest curiosity and some sadness.

"Hmmm, love?" Raven considered the question, did he love money? He certainly liked it, it was useful and it was definitely nice to have around. But did he love it? Hell was that even a question he was capable of answering. He didn't exactly understand love all that well, he suspected that in some way or another he loved Laura, Jean, Ororo, Scott and Charles, at least in a family sense, but did he love money. Did money make him feel the same as those people did?

The answer, the short answer, was no. He liked money and he needed it but he didn't love it. Raven already knew he wouldn't see out anyone he actually cared about for money so he doubted he actually loved it.

"Love no, like yes." The green eyed mercenary answered after a second gaining an understanding nod from the old man. "You don't need to worry about me selling you out for more money if that is what you're worried about." The green eyed mercenary added, trying to address the underlying concern that he would betray them for the promise of more money. "As long as I have a contract, and get my money on time, I always keep my word." Raven finished, rolling his neck. Nodded in understanding and held out a sandwich, the green eyed mutant took one gratefully and took a bite, turkey and cheese. It tasted nice, just the right amount of mayonnaise.

"And you girl, why are you willing to help?" The old man inquired. "The boy does it for the money and his own sense of obligation to his client, why do you want to help us look for the Shroud?" He questioned, the rest of the room was quiet, awaiting the red heads answer.

"The organisation I work for gave me the assignment, I haven't failed one yet. More importantly they pay quite well, I wont lie to you. I have no personal stake in this," Natalie gestured over to the green eyed Assassin reclining against the wall. "Just like he is, I'm here because it's my job and I want to get paid." The woman finished before walking back to one of the unoccupied walls and leaning against it. No point in exposing her back if she didn't need to after all. The old man nodded sadly.

"I see," The old man said slowly before looking at the sky as if searching for inspiration. His eyes widened as if he had just realised something. "Oh how rude of me," The glasses wearing man said sounding surprised at himself. "My name is Shiro Yoshimo a member of The Knights of the Cross. It is a pleasure to meet the two of you." He greeted formally, Raven nodded in return, Natalie mimicking the motion.

"Knight of the Cross?" Raven inquired after a second or two of silence. Causing the old man along with the other two sword wielders to nod.

"You do not know then?" Michael inquired, sounding somewhat surprised. Raven shook his head when asked.

"Sorry, never even heard of an organisation called that," The black haired Assassin admitted. Shiro looked down for a second as if considering something before nodding signalling that he had come to a decision.

"The Knights of the Cross are a group of people who wield the three Holy Swords Amoracchius, Esperacchius and Fidelaccuius. Each of these swords have a nail from the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in their hilts and as such a powerful weapons against the darkness of the world, also all three of the current wielders of these swords are in the room with you." The old man finished smiling, Raven just nodded slowly before asking another question. Hell he was being paid to find the burial shroud of Jesus while fighting against Fallen Angels, it paid to keep an open mind right now.

"Why are you telling me this?" The green eyed mercenary asked, surely Shiro didn't answer everyone who asked, the white haired old man just smiled.

"I just have a feeling about the two of you." Shiro answered honestly. "Like I can trust you, even if I strongly disagree with your career choices." He added after a moment, Raven and Natalie just nodded, though the younger Assassin couldn't help but be a smart ass.

"When you say feeling do you mean the kind of feeling where you think you've left your wallet in your other pants or is it more like, 'God to Shiro, God to Shiro, you need to make a left here?" The green eyed Assassin asked slyly, causing his red head counterpart to sigh in exasperation and Michael to mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, 'Oh please not another one.' The old man sighed before looking up at the younger man.

"The second one," He deadpanned to the younger man causing both Raven and Harry Dresden to chuckle. Shiro looked down at the, now empty, plate of sandwiches. "I will go get more food, while you call your wife Michael," The old man said to the broad sword wielder who nodded in return. Sanya and Dresden looked at the two Assassin's as if waiting for one of them to say something, surprisingly it was Natalie that folded first.

"What do you know about the Shroud Mr. Dresden?" The red haired woman inquired, getting straight to the point. The brown eyed man rubbed a weathered hand over his face at the question.

"First just call me Harry," The Wizard stated, his eyes hardened somewhat. "And second how do I know that I can trust you?" The older man demanded of the two younger Assassin's. Raven chose to field that question.

"Because if we wanted to kill you Dresden, I for one would do it by bringing down whatever building you happen to live in with explosives, failing that I would kill you from range when you couldn't see me coming and didn't expect it." Raven said flatly, outlining what was a quickly put together, if quite well thought out, plan to effectively kill the Wizard. Dresden nodded slowly and Raven sighed. "Look, just think of us as hired help that you don't have to pay. We will end up involved in this one way or the other, better off having us where you can see us right?" The mutant offered, getting a sigh from the Wizard followed by a nod. It was obvious that the man trusted the Judgement of the Knights of the Cross but was on edge about something.

"At the moment I don't know much more than the fact that it's in the city." Dresden offered, causing the two Assassins to hold in a groan, they really had been hoping for more. "I have a few suspects but that's about it, I'm going to need more time to put together a better list or at least get some more information, do you two know anything about investigating?" The Wizard asked, Raven nodded slowly. He knew a little bit, not a lot, but a little bit.

"I am quite good at information gathering and interrogation." Natalie replied to Dresden who nodded in return.

"Think of me more like hired muscle," Raven said honestly. "I know enough about investigating to get by but I'm a lot better at fighting and killing things than I am at investigating them." The green eyed Assassin admitted honestly. Dresden sighed but appeared to be grateful that he had been honest instead of bullshitting him. Raven fished a pocket note book out of his jacket and quickly wrote down a number before handing it over to Natalie who looked at if for a second before adding her own. The teen handed the note to the now interested looking Dresden. "It's our mobile numbers, mines the top one," Raven told the Wizard. "This way you can get in contact with us fast when you need to."

"You do know that in sufficient amounts Magic will short out technology?" Dresden asked, prompting Natalie to shrug.

"My phone is EMP proof, it shouldn't be a problem." The red haired spy stated, causing Raven to sigh in relief.

"So's mine, so even your Mojo shouldn't cause our stuff any problems." The black haired teen stated. Causing Dresden to nod, the black haired Wizard seemed to think for a second before opening his mouth.

"How old are you two?" Dresden inquired, the two Assassin's looked at each other for a second before shrugging.

"Twenty Two," Natalie answered.

"Sixteen or Seventeen," Raven replied in a nonchalant tone. Dresden gave the two Assassins a look over before settling on the younger of the two.

"Aren't you a little young to be doing this?" Dresden questioned, Raven shrugged but surprisingly it was Natalie that answered the question.

"I doubt the Templar would have any problems killing people Dresden." The red head stated, causing Raven to sigh in his head. He was unsurprised that Natalie knew that, she was good, she was very good and Raven had no reason to believe that S.H.I.E.L.D was any worse at their jobs than she was.

Naturally what Laura and he did never went unnoticed. It was a little hard to keep that many dead bodies a secret, after a while the press started to put some of the seemingly random murders together.

They all had the same MO and no witnesses, or if there was a witness they could never identify anyone or say how many people were involved. In addition to this all the people killed were either criminals at their time of death, convicted posthumously when new evidence came to light or were simply suspected of criminal activity.

Eventually a rumour started going around the criminal underworld, about a group of freelance Assassins for hire working as avengers, the press conned the so called 'organisation' Templar after the knightly order. It was amazing how people could get the little things right while missing the bigger picture, seriously how were two people an organisation?

"What is Templar?" Sanya asked from his cot, Dresden threw a quick look at the Knight of the Cross.

"An Urban Legend," The Wizard answered, looking at the mercenary suspiciously, Raven nodded at Dresden's declaration.

"All legends are based on fact though." The green eyed Assassin answered. "Templar was no different. It's not an organisation by any means and not every death that has been attributed to it was actually carried out by me or my partner. In fact most of them weren't committed by either of us, even though the Urban Legend of Templar was based on our acts. But that's about it, I can handle myself Dresden that's all you need to know." The Wizard nodded, seemingly mollified by the answer. Natalie looked at him for a second.

"Got any interesting stories?" The red head asked, Raven just smiled.

"One or two," The mercenary replied, "care to swap some?" the blue-green eyes of the older Assassin crinkled slightly as she smiled at her younger counterpart.

"When the job's done I would be more than happy to." Natalie replied, her mouth turning up into a smile and getting a nod out of the green eyed mercenary. They were both aware that no swapping of stories would happen at the end of the job, it was all just an act. One each chose to capitalise on, it made them seem more human to the Wizard and his companions, not so much like the close to emotionless killing machines that they could be when they were on the job. It made them seem more human and thus more trust worthy, even if it was only on a subconscious level.

Nothing else of consequence was discussed after that, the two Assassin's left their phone numbers with Michael, Shiro and Sanya on their way out asking to be called if anything came up. Before going their separate ways, Raven couldn't help but yawn on his way back to his hotel room. It was one am by the time he had walked through the front door, his day had been boring as shit, Raven could only hope that the next day would prove to be more interesting.

**XXX**

"Young man there no need to feel down! I said Young man!" Raven snatched the phone off of his bedside dresser and placed it to his ear.

"Hello," The green eyed mercenary said into the receiver. "Raven here, may I ask who is calling?"

"Hi Raven, this is Harry Dresden, I may have found a lead on the Shroud can you meet me down at Burnham harbour in an hour?" The voice of the Wizard asked, Raven pulled a towel out of his dresser.

"Sure I'll meet you there," The mercenary replied, walking towards the bathroom. "Can I expect anyone else to be there or is it just going to be you and me?" Dresden seemed to consider the question for a second as Raven could only hear breathing on the other end of the line.

"I'm calling Natalie next to see if she will help, so you can probably expect her as well." Dresden's voice said after a moment, getting a grunt of acknowledgement from the mercenary. Natalie would definitely be there, the woman wouldn't pass up a lead, he could already tell that about her.

"Understood, I'll see you in an hour Dresden." Raven said into the receiver before hanging up and throwing the phone back onto the bed as he turned on the shower and let it warm up. If this was a legitimate lead then there was a good chance that he would be going up against the Knights of the Blackened Denarius now he just needed to plan out what kind of ordnance he needed to take. Raven had many wonderful things that either exploded, stabbed or shot people. It was always such a chore to figure out what exactly to take with him, the somewhat unhinged mercenary always wished he could take it all but alas he never could.

The green eyed killed towelled himself off as he walked into the bed room and pulled out the 'Toy Box' again. The duffel bag had been unloaded yesterday and now he needed to do it all over again, but first some clothes. Black combat boots, grey pants, a long sleeved grey shirt and a black jacket. The clothes looked ordinary enough but they were far from it, each of the pieces of clothing, with the exception of the boots, were made from Kevlar fibres.

Sure Raven knew he could heal from most bullet wounds, but that didn't change one simple thing that just about every regenerator learned over the course of their lives. Getting shot hurts. The pants, shirt and jacket had also been altered to allow him to carry far more weapons and clips than normal without showing it on the outside, which had really been a god send for some of the things he had to do.

First came the handguns, a pair of the ever trust worthy Colt 1911. Each Colt going into a shoulder holster. Next came the sub-machine guns, a pair of Skorpion's strapped to his lower back, it made driving a little uncomfortable but it was not impossible or enough to be a real distraction. After which came the pair of sawn-off shot guns strapped to the inside of the jacket. Raven smiled to himself that was the guns done, now for the rest. Knives were secured to his lower back, calf's and the side of his biceps. The 'Toy Box' was opened and it's explosive pay load was revealed. Raven cocked his head to the side for a second before a smile came over his face.

"Oh what the hell, lets go nuts!" The mercenary declared, a smile of somewhat questionable sanity on his face. The duffel bag was opened, half a dozen Incendiary, Fragmentation and Flash Bang grenades were thrown inside without a second thought. Raven shrugged again and added three charges of C-4 to the mix, because why not? Then came even more extra bullets for his guns and finally the two Katana he hadn't taken with him the day before. Raven whistled a jaunty tune to himself while zipping up the Duffel bag that contained enough explosives inside to level a large building.

Raven was still whistling to himself as he walked down the stairs to the car park. His thumb hitting the immobiliser as the Camery came into view. The car gave a short beep as it unlocked, the duffel bag was thrown into the back seat as Raven slid into the drivers side. The car started with a thrum as the engine came to life, Raven stopped whistling and flicked on the radio searching for someone that was playing at least fairly decent music, preferably not pop. His channel surfing came to an end when he heard the song Bad Company come on, and settled back to listen as he drove. The green eyed mercenaries mind turned to the Knights of the Blackened Denarius as he compiled what he knew about them.

First they were old, or at least most of them were, real old.

Second they were skilled, most of them had hundreds if not thousands of years to hone their abilities. That was not a good thing in his book, it was hard enough to take on a more experienced mutant who knew how to use their abilities. Let alone a Demonic Hellspawn that had a couple of thousand years of experience on him.

Third they all carried a coin, a Roman Denarius to be exact, that housed a Fallen Angel inside, if he killed one of these bastards do not touch said coin, that was like asking to be possessed.

Four their abilities would likely be extremely varied.

Finally, Five, they could shape shift into a battle form that granted them a boost to all their abilities. He needed to kill them before they could shape shift or else the situation would probably go from Bad to Fuck Me Sideways in less than a second.

The green eyed Assassin sighed, that was an abysmally short list. Hell he didn't even know what their common weaknesses were, though considering they were Fallen Angels he guessed that religious artefacts might do it. But then why did they want the Shroud? Raven sighed and shelled the line of thought, for now he would go with bullets, explosives, bladed weaponry and the ability to control wind to kill the bastards, if that failed then...well he supposed prayer couldn't hurt. Or just Teleporting his ass out of there, whichever worked.

Raven let out a breath as he pulled into the car park next to a...well he supposed it probably a blue Volkswagen beetle at some point but not any more. Now it was sort of a mishmash of about seven other colours, all of which was kind of offencive to the eyes. But it was definitely Dresden's as the man was sitting on the hood, while Natalie stood looking at Raven through his windscreen. The black haired killer for hire sighed as he stepped out of the car.

"Show time."

**End- Chapter 7 **


	8. Chapter 8

**Weapons: Origin **

**Chapter Eight: Hakuna Matata**

**Authors Note- Important!**

Okay no need to worry to much, only a short one this time.

First there is now a poll up on my profile, this poll for you guys to decide if Harry's parents should still be alive. For the record if they are alive no they did not abandon him, or neglect him or anything like that. Also he will not be the-boy-who-lived, that was planned from the beginning. This is the first of a series of poll's that will stay up from one chapter to the next. They are in order.

Should Harry have a sibling

Should the sibling be a boy or a girl

if Harry having a sibling is a yes then another poll will come up.

What should Harry's siblings name be, I'll give you 4 or 5 to choose from.

Should Harry's sibling be the boy-who-lived or the-girl-who-lived depending on gender. It should also be noted that if Harry either does not have a sibling or that sibling is not voted as the boy-who-lived or the-girl-who-lived then the title will be given to Neville Longbottom. Also no if he has a sibling that won't be a jerk.

I kind of think this chapter ended on something of a flat note but hopefully the rest of the chapter makes up for that. If I think of a better ending later I'll replace it but until then we're all just going to have to deal with it.

Now that, that is out of the way lets get started shall we?

**Story Start-**

"Show time," The green eyed Assassin muttered to himself as he dragged his body out of the Camery. Pulling the duffel bag out of the back seat Raven threw a lazy wave to Natalie and Dresden while giving a slight yawn.

"Nice to see you both." The black haired killer greeted, gaining a nod from each of his companions. "So where we heading Dresden?" Raven asked, adjusting the duffel bag on his back. The Wizards expression seemed to fall in on itself, that probably wasn't a good thing. The dark haired Wizard ran a hand through his hair.

"Out in the harbour there's a ship by the name of the Etranger to the best of my knowledge the Shroud is on board." Dresden stated, the two Assassins nodded. Raven looked over his two current 'partners' before pulling the duffel bag off of his back and unzipping it slightly. Reaching inside the green eyed teen found what he was looking for, a cylindrical object was pulled out and offered to both Dresden and Natalie.

"Incendiary grenade anyone?" Raven questioned, Dresden's eyes seemed to pop out of their sockets while Natalie just reached forward and plucked the grenade out of his hand before placing it inside her coat. A nod from the red head was all the gratitude that Raven got, and perhaps more importantly it was all he needed.

"Where did you get those?" Harry asked, looking quite perplexed by how a sixteen to seventeen year old would get their hands on military hardware. Raven just shrugged as he pulled another grenade out of the duffel bag and offered it to Dresden.

"I know a guy who knows a guy." The mutant said non-committally as he replaced the grenade into the bag as Dresden shook his head. The Wizard sighed before straightening and looking at his two helpers.

"Okay, crash course. How much do you to know about Magic?" Dresden inquired, his brow furrowing with what Raven assumed to be worry.

"Not much"

"Shit all"

Came the two responses from the Assassins, the Wizard sighed. Before composing himself and opening his mouth.

"Okay, I'll make this the cliff notes version on Magical combat." Dresden stated, "Rule one, don't leave any of your blood lying around it can be used for nasty things like killing you from a distance by a somewhat proficient Magic user. Rule two, anything that looks inhumane it probably is and as such you should kill it." Dresden left the statement hang for a second before continuing.

"Preferably with fire, fire almost always works well. Rule three, bullets work, in most cases. Some nasty motherfuckers however can shrug them off like nothing, if this happens aim for the eyes or get the fuck out of their way. Finally anything that looks even remotely like its out of a Fairy Tale is probably vulnerable to Iron, so that's going to be your best bet, you two get all of that?" Dresden asked, the two Assassins nodded to the Wizard who turned to look out at the harbour, "Okay then, shall we?" Harry said before leading the two Assassins closer to the water.

Raven sighed, don't leave any blood behind. That was going to be a tall order, like most regenerators when it came to a straight up fight Raven was something of a Juggernaut. Meaning that he generally ignored the wounds that he was given and his opponents attacks unless they were coming at one of his vital points. Oh he preferred to sneak around and kill people when he had the option but that didn't change the fact that when things came face to face he acted like a Juggernaut. But now he couldn't really afford to have his blood lying around, Raven sighed, he was going to have to change his whole fighting style, this was going to suck.

A shiver went up Raven's spine, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Someone was watching him, something was watching him. The mercenary forced himself to remain calm before throwing a discreet look at his red haired counterpart who gave him an almost unnoticeable nod followed by an equally unnoticeable shake of her head, the message was clear. Yes Natalie could also feel someone watching them, no now was not the time to try and find them, Raven gave his fellow Assassin a nod of his own before focusing back on the task at hand. He would trust her judgement that much at least. He still placed a block of air behind his own head for insurance though.

Burnham Harbour looked like the parking lot of an ocean going Wal-Mart. It might have been able to hold a football field or three. White wharves stretched out over the water with pleasure boats and small fishing vessels in rows within a placid oval of water. The scent of the lake was one part dead fish, one part algae-coated rock, and one part motor oil. It made for a truly wonderful smell all told, still at least they didn't have to worry about masking their scents, the Harbour would do that for them.

The Etranger was not hard to find, in fact it only took the group of three a few minutes, moored at a slip not far from the entrance. It was a pretty little ship, a white pleasure boat roomy enough to house a comfortable cabin. The Etranger wasn't new, but she looked neat and well cared for. A Canadian flag hung from a little stand on the ship's Stern. Raven tuned out the people around him and listened, it seemed that listening was a trick that both Dresden and Natalie had picked up as well as they both seemed to be doing it.

Listening was a trick Raven had picked up when he was trapped by the Scientists. Not many people seemed to have worked out the trick of how to do it, blocking out all other sound in order to better hear one sound in particular-such as distant voices. It wasn't about things like mutations or even Dresden's magic, It was entirely about focus and discipline. That being said, the ability to manipulate the air and thus make sound travel just that little bit further sure as hell helped.

"Unacceptable," said a quiet, female voice in the Etranger's cabin. It was marked with a gentle accent, both Spanish and British, the woman who was speaking had obviously been around the block a few times. "The job entailed a great deal more expense than was originally estimated. I'm raising the price to reflect this, nothing more." There was a short pause, and then the woman said, "Would you like an invoice for your tax return then? I told you the quote was only an estimate. It happens." Another pause, every thing was quiet the woman let out a small sigh, "Excellent. As scheduled, then."

The group of three stared out at the lake, just seeming like three people just taking in the view, and strained to hear anything else. Evidently the conversation was over. Raven checked around, but there weren't any people in sight moving around the harbour on a weekday morning. The green eyed mutant took a breath and gave a quick all clear signal to the other two as the unlikely trio moved closer to the ship.

Raven caught a glimpse of motion through a window in the cabin, and heard a chirping sound. A cell phone rested on a counter beside a pad of hotel stationary. A woman appeared in the window dressed in a long gown of dark silk, and picked up the cell phone. She answered it without speaking and a moment later said, "I'm sorry. You've the wrong number." The other two moved off a little further.

Raven continued to watch as she put the phone down and casually let the nightgown slide to the floor. He watched little more. Raven swore that he wasn't being a peeping Tom. This was purely him checking out the situation just like a professional. He noted that she had some intriguing curves and a nice ass. See? Professionalism in action. The woman opened a door, and a bit of steam wafted out, the sound of the water growing louder. She stepped in and closed the door again, leaving the cabin empty.

Dresden took the first step onto the gangplank and Raven knew the three were on the clock. The woman might not be a fan of long showers and that meant that their time was probably severely limited to find the shroud. The thieves themselves posed no real threat to the Mutant, the Assassin or the Wizard but the fact they were being watched by someone, or something, put Raven on edge. He wanted that Shroud and then to be gone and fast.

Dresden made his way down into the cabin while Raven and Natalie hid themselves on deck, the sounds of the boats on the water that were all that could be heard. It was exactly that which tipped the two Assassins off that everything was about to go straight to hell. There was no sounds from animals, so calls of sea gulls or other bird life and animals tended to avoid places of conflict. That meant something was wrong something was very, very wrong. The sound of light footsteps came from the board-walk near the gangplank, Raven signalled for Natalie to stay down while he stood up to take a look at their new comer. The woman was beautiful, and more importantly, she was utterly terrifying.

Oh she looked normal enough, long dark hair that came down to her waist, her skin was an almost unhealthy white that gleamed with what the mercenary could only call a bestial vitality. Her outfit was a simple no-nonsense number, the kind that one could find on a well to do business woman. Black shoes, accompanied by black pants a white blouse and black dress jacket over top, her lips were coated in a blood red lipstick and her mouth was pulled back into what Raven would call a friendly smile, if it wasn't for the absolutely monstrous amount of murderous intent practically radiating from her.

All of this however paled into utter insignificance when he looked into her eyes. They were dark, bordering on black, she was dangerous, just looking into her eyes told Raven that. This woman, no this Thing, was incredibly dangerous. It was dangerous just to be around this Thing, let alone to voluntarily attract it's attention as he had. Her eyes were hollow, they showed nothing, like the whole world was just some kind of game, a soulless cunning mixed with heartless selfishness. The woman smiled wider as if sensing his thoughts.

"Hello, I am here for the Shroud, would you be so kind as to get it for me and I will be on my way?" The woman asked, Raven shivered. Her voice was enchanting, the kind of voice that a story teller might have. But underneath the warmth and richness of her tone was something else, something far darker that promised pain and suffering, that loved pain and suffering, an ancient malice that hadn't dulled since the moment of it's creation.

Raven didn't waste any time on trying to talk with the Thing, the mercenary threw himself back, his hands reaching inside of his jacket and removing the Colt 1911's from their shoulder holsters in one fluid movement that spoke of his years of practice. Raven's left leg lashed out hooking the handle of the duffel bag and sending it flying towards Natalie.

"KILL!" The mercenary roared to the Assassin, his fingers tightened around the Colt's triggers. The sound of gunfire filled the wharf, hot lead was spat from the Colt's barrel at the same time that the sound of Natalie's own Glock joined the party. The woman flinched back as the first bullets entered her gut, Raven readjusted his aim and shot again, cleanly hitting her throat and liver.

Natalie's Glock went off from next to him and the Woman's head snapped back as a bullet impacted her skull. The two killers stopped as the body hit the wooden planks of the wharf with a thud. Raven was still breathing hard but at least she was dead. The sound of laughter drifted up from the 'corpse' and filled the Mutant with a primal form of dread.

"Oh such naughty children," The 'corpse' stated. If it wasn't for the fact that Raven was morbidly fascinated at that moment it probably would have occurred to him to start shooting again. The 'corpse' sat up, the bullet that had hit her head falling out while her skin healed over, Raven's moth went dry. Either this Thing could survive an injury to the brain or that bullet had been stopped by it's skull, the green eyed mercenary really hoped it was the second one.

The 'corpse' stood up and Raven could see the hate inside the Thing's eyes now. Hate and unveiled malice and then the woman changed, it made him want to throw up. Her hair lengthened out to a good fifteen feet, each strand becoming an inch thick and taking on the look of metal, it whipped around her body deflecting the bullets that the two Assassin's were firing at the now confirmed Denarian. Her body changed, though Raven did notice that it stayed disturbingly female even as he attempted to put more lead inside the things body.

The lines of curvy hips swept down to legs that were oddly hinged, back-jointed like a lion's. She had skin of metallic green scales, and her arms ended in four-fingered, metallic-clawed hands. Two sets of eyes, one luminescent green, one glowing cherry red, burned with hate at the two Assassins while a luminous sigil burned at the centre of her forehead. The demon screamed, it took all of Raven's will power not to cover his ears and then it was upon them.

The Denarian crashed into the deck of the pleasure craft, splintering the wood beneath it as the metal like hair sought to remove the Assassins heads from their shoulders. Demon's, they were new to both Raven and Natalie, people trying to kill them however were far from new and as such their bodies reacted on auto pilot to the attack.

Natalie ducked low, her hands blurring as one pulled out another gun and the other hurled a pair of throwing knives at her target. Raven went high, vaulting off of the railing on the side of the boat and sending him into the air, his hands blurred, the Colt's being replaced into their holsters and the sawn-off shotguns being drawn out. The roar of gunfire once again enveloped the deck, the bullets were repelled by the flashing metallic hair. Out of the corner of his eye Raven noted the two women that climbed out of the window of the cabin, evidently he was not the only one as the metal hair raced at the two, killing one instantly by severing her spine while the other dived into the water. The one that lived was carrying some kind of case, Raven didn't know what was inside it but he could guess.

The mercenary landed on top of the cabin, well bullets were completely fucking useless that was obvious so he would need something a little more deadly. Raven launched himself at the Denarian, the Monster looked amused, his arm was flung out a blade of wind roaring towards the Denarian made the thing pause, it pulled the metal hair in front of it, Raven couldn't help but smile as he saw a few of the strands snap. The metallic hair rushed forward, cutting through the space he had been a second before, Raven landed breathing heavy as Natalie loaded another clip into her Glock. The wounds on the Denarian's back were healing where she had been shot but Raven was sure that it hurt. It seemed that it couldn't block his wind blades and Natalie's bullets at the same time, that was good they could keep it busy. Now all they had to do was work out how to kill the thing.

The Denaian charged, Raven swore inside his head, as he leapt away to avoid getting cut apart by the metal hair, Natalie mimicking his actions. The wind blades were thrown again, the Denarian dodged, Raven grimaced, they couldn't keep this up forever. The fucking thing was actually reading their attack patterns already.

Fire roared out of the cabin window catching the Denarian in the stomach. The stench of burning flesh filled his nostrils, Raven landed lightly as Dresden ran out of the cabin of the pleasure boat looking grim.

"**YoU'lL paY FOR tHAt YoU FuCkING BraT!" **The Denarian screamed, racing forward. Raven had no idea if the woman couldn't speak properly in that form or if she was just doing it for dramatic effect, either way, it was scary as hell! The Demon's speed must have surprised Dresden as well, the Wizard didn't even try to put up some kind of protection opting for just jumping backwards. The metallic hair raced forward again, Raven grimaced and swung his hand, a blade of air ripping apart the attack before it could connect.

Raven's sense of danger went into over drive, he needed to dodge now! The green eyed mercenary twisted, his reflexes were what saved his life. The metallic hair had managed to creep up behind him only took his left eye instead of killing him by piercing his brain.

Pain, that was all Raven could feel, mind numbing, soul searing pain. They needed to get away they needed to get away now. He could feel it, the primal hate, the rage that he felt towards the Denarian. The mutant pushed the emotions dove into them and gained strength from them. The pain was still mind numbingly agonising but he could think through it at least. Zaeed Massani was right 'Rage is a hell of an anaesthetic!'

Raven's remaining eye focused on the Denarian who was preparing her follow up attack. The metal like hair raced forward, the same piece of hair that had taken his eye once again seeking his life, good. An air blade raced out to meet the hair, cleanly cutting the blood soaked portion off before a gust blew it out into the ocean, that was one problem taken care of at least.

The mercenary disappeared in a flash of red. The Demon's eyes, both sets, widened as the injured teen appeared next to Natalie and grabbed her around the waist, another flash of red and the two were next to Dresden. The metallic hair raced forward, Raven threw the Denarian a single fingered salute as he hooked the duffel bag with his foot, the three vanished in a last flash of red.

The Denarian howled in frustration, fucking teleporting! The Demon moved her foot and hit something small and metal on the floor, the monsters head flicked down. If it was possible for a demons face to pale, hers did. Sitting at the Denarian's feet were twelve different shaped objects, twelve grenades to be exact, all missing their pins. One of the incendiary's that were face up carried the mocking picture of a winking Meerkat and a Warthog with the words 'Hakuna Matata' on the side in capitals. The explosion was deafening.

The group of three, plus one duffel bag, appeared back next to their cars in a flash of red. Raven clutched at his face as the mind numbing pain returned. He was going to black out, the green eyed teen fished his car keys out of his pocket and threw them to Natalie as his body fell towards the floor. In the distance Raven swore he could hear an explosion and allowed himself a small smile before the darkness took him. Good luck finding his blood now bitch!

**XXX**

Pain, that was the first sensation that Raven felt upon waking, pain. The entire left side of his face seemed to throb with the sensation, which was actually kind of a novelty for him considering that normally Raven never woke up in any kind of discomfort no matter where he slept. Considering the was his face felt though Raven found that the novelty of waking up with discomfort was something he could quite easily live without.

The green eyed mutants right eye opened, his left felt strange. The same way it always did when he did something unbelievably stupid and managed to lose an eye. No this was not the first time it had happened and Raven seriously doubted it would be the last. It would take about a week for the eye to heal based on past experience.

Under normal circumstances this would be horrible for most mercenary's, a loss of an eye meant a loss of depth perception, that alone would be crippling for any fighter. On top of that would come the problem of the now huge blind spot on one side of the persons face. Fortunately for Raven, he was paranoid as hell, or as Laura and he preferred to call it 'Crazy Prepared'. Something that held him in good stead at times like this as the black haired mutant had trained himself to be able to fight with the loss of either eye. It had been hard, and as Ororo put it, insane, but Raven had stubbornly insisted that it would come in handy one day, and it seemed this event proved him right.

The right eye focused on the area around him, Raven found it to be somewhat surprising that he recognised the room. It was the same dingy room that Natalie and he had waited in when they first met Dresden and the Knights of the Cross. His left arm came up and touched his eye socket, finding a medical eye patch in the way, that was good, at least they had bandaged up what needed to be bandaged.

It would not look good if he walked around Chicago with only one eye and an empty socket on display, it would scare the children. Actually now that he thought about it that was an oddly tempting idea. Raven shelved the somewhat morbid impulse and stood before feeling a draft and looking down, he was naked, well hopefully whoever had done that enjoyed the show.

His right eyed flicked around the room and landed on the clothes he was weaing earlier sitting on a cot over on the other side of the room, his duffel bag and weaponry sitting thoughtfully beside them. Raven had only just finished pulling on his jacket when the door opened and Natalie walked in, there was no surprise on her face that he was awake, it didn't surprise him, she didn't look like the type that was surprised easily.

"You've been out for three hours." The red haired Assassin told him, skipping the pleasantries, something that Raven was quite thankful for. He wanted to know what the fuck was going on, who was doing it and, more importantly, why they were doing it. Once those questions were answered he would deal with the subtle nuances that came with making small talk, not before.

"What's the situation?" Raven inquired slinging the duffel bag over his shoulder and allowing Natalie to lead the way as they walked through the halls of Saint Mary's. The S.H.I.E.L.D operative grimaced as she considered her answer, no good news then.

"One of the thieves is dead, the other missing, the Denarian could be dead or alive, though after seeing it in action I think the smart bet would be on alive." Natalie said, getting a grunt of agreement in return. After seeing what that thing was capable of it wouldn't surprise Raven in the slightest if it was still alive, piss him right the hell off sure, but not surprise.

"Dresden got any leads?" He asked as they took another corner coming out into the chapel, Natalie shook her head with a sigh.

"Nothing concrete, said he'd call us when he knew something more." The red head stated drawing a nod from her raven haired companion.

"Why are you still here?" Raven questioned, he felt it was a valid one. Dresden was obviously gone or Natalie would have let the Wizard explain it himself. He may have liked the other Assassin on a professional level but they were far from being friends of any sort, so that begged the question of why she was still here.

"Thought you might want a situation update, that and I'm not comfortable leaving that many explosives lying around without someone that knows what they're doing to keep an eye on them. Besides you wouldn't have taken what Forthill said as accurate as he may have forgotten to mention something critical that only Dresden or I would know." Natalie finished getting a nod from the mutant as they entered Father Forthill's office.

"Thanks," Raven replied before turning his attention to the elderly man behind the desk in front of him who looked relieved that he was awake. "I take it I have you to thank for patching me up, so thank you Father." Raven stated with a small bow in the Catholics direction, the action seemingly snapping Forthill out of the small daze he had upon seeing him.

"No problem at all," Forthill replied before looking at the medical eye patch. "We were unable to save the eye, my apologies." The elderly man stated and looked down, Raven shrugged.

"It's not the first time this has happened Father." Raven assured the older man who looked at him like he was crazy. "Based on my past experience it should take around a week before my eye will regenerate, don't feel bad about it Father." The mercenary assured the priest who just nodded looking somewhat dazed. Raven turned his attention back to Natalie, "My car here?" He asked the red head nodded and held out the keys.

"Thanks," Raven told her a small amount of genuine warmth in his tone. "I'll see you later, Natalie, Father." He nodded to each and walked out of the room, Raven just wanted to go back to bed.

**XXX**

The green eyed teen stepped out of the shower and groaned, honestly he had wanted to stay inside longer but he really wanted to get to bed, after relaxing a little first. It had been a long day, Raven walked out into the combined kitchen, dining and living area of his apartment and opened the fridge, pulling out a Corona and a lime. Teleportation was really, really useful when you wanted to steal shit you weren't allowed to buy yet and after his day Raven was feeling the need for a freaking drink.

A wedge of wind pushed the top off the beer as a blade sliced the lime and pushed the now cut off piece of fruit into the bottles neck. The black haired teen made his way over to the couch and sat down before taking a long pull of the alcoholic substance and flicking on the T.V, the news was the first thing that came on. Raven didn't flick the channel, he just wanted to zone out for thirty minutes to an hour before heading to bed.

The news reporter was standing in front of a burning building, a hotel by the looks of it. A shiver went down the teens spine, oh that wasn't good, that wasn't good at all. Something horrible, or maybe wonderful, was going to happen to him soon, he just knew it.

Raven took another pull on the Corona draining the bottle dry, his hand flicked out the fridge opened and three more Corona's came out along with the lime. It wouldn't get him so much as tipsy, but Raven felt like he was going need them soon. It was a stress relief thing. The tops sprung off of the beers while a wedge of lime pushed themselves into the bottleneck of all three bottles.

The teen plucked one of the bottles of Corona out of the air and took a large gulp, emptying half the bottle in a single pull and continued to watch the news. The reporter was a tanned woman with a fair sized rack who seemed unruffled by the building on fire behind her.

"The fire is currently growing even larger though what caused the blaze is still in question though the fire-fighters are telling us that it will be under control soon." The woman stated, Raven downed the remainder of the Corona and snagged the next one out of the air. "So far no deaths or injuries have been reported by the staff of the Talbott Hotel." The Corona bottle was half emptied in one gulp as the teen continued to watch the news.

"The fire was thought to have been started on the fourteenth floor of the hotel." The reporter continued, the Corona was emptied by the second gulp and Raven snagged the last one out of the air and took a deep pull. "In the room on one Natalie Rushman, though she was out at the time the fire started." The reporter stated, Raven didn't bother groaning opting to instead to finish his last Corona as a knock was heard from the front door, proving that Irony really was the driving force behind the universe. The black haired teen stood and picked his Colt off of the kitchen table as he walked to the door and opened it a crack, standing on the other side, just as he had feared, was Natalie Rushman, looking no worse for wear.

"Your hotel room burned down," Raven stated, Natalie nodded the green eyed teen noticed the bags in the red heads hands. Raven sighed and opened he door waving the S.H.I.E.L.D agent inside, just as the woman passed him the mutant levelled his gun at her head. Before looking down and seeing her own Glock pointing at him, and moving the Colt away from her, that was all the proof he needed, anyone else would have shot him.

"How did it happen?" Raven inquired as the red head placed her bags down next to the couch.

"Explosives, I'm guessing it was payback for that fight we had with the Denarian today." Natalie replied turning to face him, Raven almost took a step back. Her blue-green eyes were blazing, Natalie might not be showing it but she was pissed. "The reason I came here was safety in numbers." The Assassin continued getting a nod from her counterpart, Raven picked up the T.V remote and turned the still on device off.

"You can take the couch," Raven said walking towards the bedroom, Natalie just nodded.

"Where are the spare blankets?" She asked, Raven shrugged.

"Is it my problem?" He asked rhetorically.

"No," Natalie said slowly slightly unsure of what his response would be.

"Then suffer in silence!" The mutant declared pulling his bedroom door closed, neither noticed the man two buildings across watching them through the window using a pair of binoculars.

**XXX**

They looked like a pair of hotel service staff, the keywords in that sentence was looked like, the two were far more than just some mere hotel service staff. The man was tall, almost breaking the two meter mark, black hair and dead eyes, wearing the normal uniform of the hotel staff consisting of black shoes, pants, a white shirt and a red jacket. His face was clean shaven and his dead eyes darted around looking for any sign of danger.

The woman was much the same, though shorter and having cropped blonde hair. Her green eyes just as dead as her partners. The two continued walking, their targets were already in the building, the woman had come here after they blew up her hotel room, it was fortunate that she had, had she gone to the house of that Knight they would likely have not got another shot at her this easily.

Of course this operation was not just them alone, a strike team of seven more were on the roof above, when the they arrived outside the room they would signal the strike team and then together they would kill anyone inside the room, after which it would be a simple matter of setting it on fire or blowing it up to make it seem like the two had just been careless.

The man allowed himself a small smile as the door came into view, and pressed a small button on the inside of his sleeve signalling the strike team. His hand reached inside the hotel jacket and pulled out his hand gun, his partner mimicking his action. The man's leg came back and kicked the door off it's hinges he went low aiming at the couch, someone could clearly be seen underneath the covers.

The man smiled and pulled the trigger just as the strike team came through the window and opened fire on the couch with their MP-5's while in the other room the sound of breaking glass followed by flashes of light from silenced guns could be seen. The man smiled, it was a job well done, then it clicked as he continued to look at the couch were was all the blood? The wall to the bedroom exploded outward and everything went straight to hell.

**XXX**

Raven lay half dozing on one side his bed while Natalie dozed on the other. What he had said earlier was completely for the value of anyone that might be lip reading through binoculars or some such, once all the lights had been turned off and the curtains closed the two Assassins had talked via Morse code by tapping the wall.

Natalie had moved off the couch and replaced herself with a life model decoy, if someone really had been watching through the open window, which Raven admitted was possible. They would think her sleeping on the couch and send people to kill her as well, breaking any potential strike force into two parts, one of which completely wasting it's time by going for a decoy. Which, naturally, is the whole point of a decoy.

As it turned out their paranoia had paid off, at three twenty in the morning Raven heard his front door being broken down, followed by his window being broken. Waking both Raven and Natalie up as the last two members of the strike team came through the window, they died, fast. The first was decapitated by a wind blade while the second was shot in the head by a silenced Glock in Natalie's hand. The two looked at each other before Raven sighed and got out of bed his hand came back a distortion appearing in the air around it, the mutant smiled and threw his hand at the wall and it exploded outward, neither Natalie nor he wasted any time in getting to work.

There were seven Assassins in the room, they didn't last long. Raven caused the dust to fly towards their attackers blinding them but giving Natalie and he a clear scope of vision. He was gone in a flash of red, reappearing behind one of the men holding a silenced MP-5. Raven's right hand lashed out, smacking the gun out of the man's hands before decapitating him with a wind blade and throwing up a wall to prevent getting any blood on him or in his eyes. The green eyed mutant used the force of the disarm to turn and shot another in the head, he heard Natalie's gun go off behind him, twice. That was the two that had broken down the done done with. Three left, the Assassins brought their guns up. It wasn't enough.

Raven's hand blurred, the wind blade bisecting two of them at the waist while Natalie shot the other in the head, the entire fight had taken less than two minutes. Natalie ran a hand through her hair before sighing and walking back into the bedroom to grab her mobile, Raven had already teleported their bags elsewhere.

"We need to leave." The red head stated completely ignoring the corpses around them, Raven nodded.

"Can your boy's take care of the clean up?" He asked and got a nod from his counterpart, the mercenary walked into the bed room and came back carrying three blocks of C-4 and throwing them at different parts of the room before grabbing Natalie and disappearing in a flash of red.

The two landed lightly in the underground car park of the hotel. Raven completely ignored the Camery in favour of the other car he had stolen earlier that night. It was nothing fancy just another sedan, a Holden commodore to be exact. If the Denarian's, or there people for that matter, knew what kind of car he drove there was every chance they would booby trap it, so Raven wasn't going to risk so much as going near the Camery, he'd just write it off as a business expense and let Strange handle it.

The two hopped into the 'new' car and Raven looked at his counterpart.

"So, where are we heading?" The mutant asked as he started the car, Natalie pulled out her phone and looked at it for a second.

"Michael Carpenters house," She answered after a second, "I'll direct you, just keep your eye out." The red head continued. Raven smiled as his counterpart hit a few buttons on the phone to call in a bomb threat to the hotel, as they pulled out of the car park. The black haired mutant gave it a minute before pulling out the detonator for the C-4.

"Bomb-voyage," Raven stated and smiled as he saw his old room go up in a fiery explosion, Natalie just gave him a flat look. "What?" He questioned, the red head sighed.

"Bomb-voyage?" She questioned after a second sounding incredulous. "Was that really the best you could come up with?" She asked, exasperation making an appearance in her tone.

"It wasn't bad," Raven defended, the red head just looked at him like he was a moron.

"It's like you were part of a bad 80's action movie," Natalie countered as Raven turned a corner.

"Oh come on it wasn't that bad." He protested weakly, actually now that he thought about it, that pun was horrible. Natalie just gave him the same a flat look again.

"It was either from a bad 80's action movie or one of those horrible superhero movies that have come out recently." She countered forcing Raven to look down sheepishly.

'At least it wasn't as bad a poorly written fan fiction.' Raven consoled himself in his thoughts, keeping up a blank facade.

"Everybody's a critic," He settled on mumbling, Natalie sighed running a hand through her red hair in exasperation.

"Just drive."

**Chapter 8- End **


	9. Chapter 9

Just letting everybody know that this story is being taken down pending rewrite. I'll bullet point my reasons below.

It's getting to jumbled

I tried to put to many crossovers into one story

Didn't spend enough time developing some characters before moving onto current story arc

On a similar note as the crossovers, I didn't spend enough time crafting the world properly before introducing more crossovers.

Just over all not happy with the way things are at the moment

This story will be rewritten under a different name, the current working title is Weapons: Project Freelancer.


End file.
